Blue Eyes
by RulerOfAllThatIsEvilChiFlowers
Summary: Very AU. An Addek FanFiction. From the moment they met, their lives became extraordinary. They just didn't know it yet. An Addison and Derek first meeting. Original character included in this story. Addison/Derek #Addek
1. Blue Eyes (1)

**_Addison and Derek's first meeting. Addek Angst (-ish). Set in a very very alternate universe. . . ._**

* * *

 **Blue Eyes**

(1)

* * *

It's a cold night in December when it happened. She's waiting in Damon's car, blowing into her hands to keep them warm because even though he has left the engine running, the heater is still broken.

 _Why isn't that a surprise?_

Maybe if this goes well, they'll have enough money to buy a new car - or at least get this dump fixed.

That being said, she knows the more likely scenario - more money equals to more drugs and Damon does care and is not bothered enough about material things to worry about anything more than rent, gas, electricity and water bills and, of course, keeping the liquor cabinet stocked.

There's a blanket of snow on the ground, not enough for traffic or planes to grind to a halt, but enough to warrant the boots she's wearing and the thick winter coat just enough to keep the chill off. She huffs out a breath and it fogs up the passenger side window so much that the view of the apartment building they're parked outside becomes cloudy and tinged with grey. Or, at least more grey than it already is. Winters in New York isn't much more than a palette of whites and charcoals.

But it's nevertheless beautiful.

The snow continues to fall, light flakes turning to heavier ones and Addison jabs at the radio because she hates the silence of these nights - the ones in which he leaves her in the car to keep watch for the cops or anyone in particular from walking in on 'whatever' he's doing while he demands money from clients who haven't yet cleared their tab. Last thing they need is for someone to question whether she's alright in there.

She's tired tonight, limbs heavy from continuous interrupted sleep and the effects of a couple whiskey shots before they drove across to Washington Square Park ( _a little dutch courage, she knows, but won't admit._ ) and it's taking a monumental amount of effort to keep her eyelids from closing like they desperately want to.

More minutes pass though, and there's a growing uneasiness about the amount of time she's been waiting for her boyfriend to return. She has the apartment number memorised but she's safer out here, in the dark, she knows it, and besides, he hates it when she comes looking for him.

It had happened a good few times ago, in the beginning, where she would panic and go to check if he was alright, only to find trashed homes and a client nursing a bloody nose or some broken ribs or other things dislocated. And he would be furious, screaming at her, telling her she'd risk some overly-nosy neighbour reporting a strange car parked outside or risk creating a scene by walking in on something she didn't need to see.

What he means by that, as she had gathered over the years they've been doing this together, is of a body. _A very dead one._ Damon has killed before and she knows it and yet staying with him is better than any alternative she can think of. Staying on his good side, too, is safer still.

 _Of course._

All of a sudden, the front door of the building she has been watching bursts open to reveal a man in only a t-shirt and jeans, his cheek bloody and swollen - the recipient, she imagines, is the barrel of Damon's gun - being forced towards the car by Damon, himself, and already she knows this isn't going to end well tonight.

She hops quickly over to the driver seat because if this is the hostage situation she immediately fears and knows for a fact it is, there's no way they can put this guy in the backseat of the car without handcuffs or a rope or cable wires - none of which they have, of course - _and it's not like she can hold him, now is it?_

Once she's seated there and her shaky fingers are clutching the steering wheel, the back door opens and she hears Damon shoving this stranger onto the seat, watches in the rearview mirror as he falls against the other door lazily and limp like all his energy has been sucked right out of him.

He slams the door shut behind him and barks at her to drive, the harshness in his voice betraying how panicked he really is.

It wouldn't have been obvious to many and other people, she thinks, but she knows him, knows him all too well, as she has ever since she was sixteen and had fallen deeply in love for the no-good-pot-smoking-public-school-dropout, which had to result in an ultimatum by her parents - him or them ( _but, really, when did the Montgomeries ever prioritised family amongst other discretions?_ ) - and it doesn't take a genius to figure out whom she had chosen over.

She'd like to think it was all the hormones coursing through her veins and naivety that made her think without her head that day. She'd really like to believe that because she wasn't all that stupid ( _she was suppose to be a surgeon. Not a high school dropout_.), up until she met him, that is.

 _Stupid in love._

Love is stupid. Love is overrated. Love make you do dumb things. Like making the wrong decisions that cuts you out of lives and trust funds.

She just wanted _that_ love and she finally found it with Damon. And Damon, he loved her.

 _No, he loves her._

He loves her. And she still loves him.

"Addison, go!"

And everything in his tone suggests this isn't what he had planned. His anxiousness quickly transfers to her veins and her whole body is humming in fear.

"Fucking drive!" he shouts again, and she floors the gas pedal, resulting in a high-pitched squeal from the tyres as they protested against the lack of friction on the snow until finally, they give in and let the car travel away from the curb.

"Where to?" she asks, gripping the wheel even tighter as the guy in the back groans and Damon hisses at him to shut the fuck up.

"The basement."

" _Our_ basement?" she asks incredulously because, _yeah_ , she doesn't expect him to have much of a plan but she would have thought there would be something better than this - their fucking basement - better than hiding a goddamn hostage under their kitchen floor.

"How many other fucking basements do you know?" he spits, any last remnants of calm evaporating.

She swallows and puts her foot down further, just making it through the next light before amber turns to red.

She wants to ask him whether he's thought about this guy remembering their route, being able to memorise the houses in their shitty shitty neighbourhood so he can lead the cops back there once he escapes, storing every detail of their faces in his mind so that he can pick them out of a line-up and put them away for decades.

Of course, she knows he hasn't, because that's the thing with Damon - he's rash and impetuous and reckless and impulsive and as much as that was once their once upon a time, a fairytale, as exciting and thrilling these enthrals once was, when they were all in for that Bonnie and Clyde verity without all the killing and thieving and robbing aspect, now it's more of a worry when she's relying on him to put food on the table and formula in Milo's bottle.

She crosses West 14th and makes the left turn a little too quickly that the car skids along the patch of ice she hadn't spied until it was too late. The roads here haven't been gritted ( _nobody gives much of a shit about that on this side of Manhattan._ ) and so she takes her foot off the gas just a little because as much as they need to get this guy inside, she needs to do it without drawing any further attention to themselves.

Without warning, she hears an audible crack and a grunt and a strangled scream escapes her mouth as she watches this guy's head slump forward.

"Wh-what did-?"

"Shut up!" he urges, pulling his gun away from the face of the guy beside him. "Last thing we need is for him to see where he's going."

 _Okay_. But he didn't have to pistol whack him in the head like that.

She knows it should be a comfort that he's going to be out cold when they pull up at the house but she also knows he's going to be a dead weight and Damon's big, granted, but he's not going to be able to drag him up onto the porch and into the house without her help.

She makes the right onto their street and slows the car gently so it doesn't slide into the wall of the house. Last thing she needs is to wake Milo.

"Unlock the door," he instructs. "Prop the door to the basement open."

"I need to check on Milo first." she tells him, but his face sours and then, she knows that was the wrong thing to say.

"He'll be fine for another five fucking minutes, Addie."

She tries not to wince at his words, tries ( _and fails miserably_.) not to feel her stomach drop when he talks about their child like he isn't the most precious thing in their lives, because deep down and as much as she wants him to, she knows he doesn't feel for Milo what she feels. Knows that as much as he loves his son, he isn't _in love_ with what they've created together.

Love keeps making you do stupid things and maybe bringing a child into _their_ _kind_ of world is one of them.

She'd like to believe it isn't. But Archer's voice rings in her ear, telling her that this time, she've officially lost it, that he can't continue to pretend that he's okay with the decisions she keeps making when he never was okay to begin with.

 _You gave up everything for that piece of shit, Addie. Your life. Your education. Your family. You picked him over us. And, tell me this, what has he done for you other than knock you up?_

Her brother's probably right. She brought shame to the Montgomery name.

She misses him.

"Okay. Yeah." she nods and exits the car but they both know she'll stop by his crib, smooth the dark curls of his hair to settle him down even if he doesn't stir.

And she does.

She unlocks the front door and makes her way upstairs quickly, inching the door to Milo's room open so the fraction of light from the hallway enables her to see that he's safe and still sleeping soundly like Damon said he'd be.

After propping open the basement door and then remembering to turn the lights on so they don't trip down the stairs, she heads back out to the car where Damon's standing by the back door with a fistful of the guy's t-shirt.

"Stand on the other side." he tells her, "Take his other arm once I've got him out."

By the time they've got him up the porch steps, the neat scar across the bottom of her stomach is protesting at the strain but she knows they have to get him inside before she can even consider a rest.

When they do, he looks at her, must have sense her discomfort and tells her to find something to tie the guy to the radiator with.

She's rummaging through the cupboard for some sort of wire she thinks she saw the other week, when she hears a series of almighty thuds.

 _Shit!_

She closes her eyes as bile rises in her throat because as much as she doesn't want to acknowledge it as such, she knows the noise was the result of the guy being thrown down the stairs to the basement.

Next, she waits for Milo's cries to echo because she knows he's heard it too, tells herself she has to go to Damon with the wire before she can comfort their son, and so once she's found what she rummaging for, she all but runs down the stairs herself.

"No rope?" he asks when she hands him the wire.

"That's all I could find."

"It'll do for tonight."

"I can go to the store in the morning." she offers, then wishes she hadn't as Milo's cries grew louder.

Damon seems to acknowledge that she needs to quiet the baby and nods at her to go back upstairs, dragging the guy's body over to the radiator on the far wall.

She's shushing Milo when she hears the light to the basement click off and the door close. Her hold on him tightens, a subconscious attempt to comfort herself just as much as she's comforting him she supposes, although it doesn't work - not that she'd expected it to.

"C'mon little man," she whispers, "You're okay. You're safe."

She feels like a fraud at those words because she knows none of them are safe now - not really - because however this situation ends, it's not going to be good for either one.

Not for her. Definitely not for Damon. And their son's collateral damage because he has criminals as parents.

He's the innocent one, the purest in all this, but he'll be the one with the harshest punishment.

There's a rattle from the kitchen, the refrigerator door opening and closing again, and she breathes kisses into her son's hair, takes from it that delicious sweet scent of milk and baby powder before laying him back down in his crib. She keeps a hand on his back, rubbing gently up and down until he drifts back off again, and then stays for a few more minutes to get her breath right, prepares herself as best she can for whatever plan Damon's formulating downstairs.

He's leaning against the counter when she enters the kitchen, tipping the bottle of Busch against his lips and draining the contents. She doesn't say anything, just stands against the frame between that room and the livingroom, her hands pressed into the wood.

"They're going to notice him missing." he announces in a tone that lets her know just how fucked they are in all of this.

"Who?"

 _What is he talking about?_

"Family. Friends. He's a student. Someone's gonna notice. He has people who's gonna miss him, Addie. "

 _Not like us,_ she adds for herself.

Sometimes she forgets not everyone is like them.

 _Unknown._

People like them do not even exist and if they don't exist, how can they go missing?

With them, no one is ever going to even notice or care and that scares her, because Milo would have nobody else.

Her skin flames and pricks with beads of sweat. "You sure? What makes you think that?" It seems such a stupid question to ask and yet here she is, letting the words spill from her lips regardless.

He tosses something towards her and she misses it, the thing landing at her feet and distinguishing itself as a wallet. She bends to pick it up, unfolding the leather and taking in the distinctive smell of cinnamon and mint.

The picture catches her eye first and her heart twists at the conundrum.

Happy, carefree, toothy smiles - oh, how she misses curling her lips in a grin just like that. But it's been too long since then and she thinks her facial muscles can no longer soften like that.

It's a village of smiles by a fireplace, all girls, looking almost similar, sisters she suspects, and a familiar face but not so because the guy they have downstairs is swollen and broken.

They did that to him.

She thinks of the last Christmas she had with her family before all this began. She was still miserable then, but what she can say is that she was happier.

 _Well, happier than she is now._

There's a student card that almost - just almost tells her to beg him to let him go ( _Columbia University of_ _Physicians_ _and Surgeons. That was her dream school._ ) and a driver's licence and she looks at it carefully, tracing the words with her fingertips.

"Derek Christopher Shepherd," she says softly, looking at the image beside the information. "His address doesn't match."

"That's because it was his friend's place."

 _What?_

"So, why'd you bring _him_ here?" her voice quivers in frustration.

 _How much more stupid can he be?_

"Addison, use your head. See, so, I can use him as leverage to get paid. Tit for tat. Then, I'll kill him."

"But why don't you just kill him? Why bring him here?"

"Because - haven't you been listening? Killing him right now doesn't get me paid. When I get the money, _then_ I'll do it."

She can't help but feel like this would be a small loss, this couple of hundred dollars, like it'd be a small price to pay for not keeping someone tied up in the basement while your child sleeps upstairs.

"How are you going to get the money?" she asks, needing his answers because she sure as hell can't see how this is going to work out.

 _What makes him think that this friend would even care?_

"Demand it off his friend."

"His friend?"

Damon sighs like he's sick of having to explain things to her. "It was his friend's place. His friend owes me the money. He wasn't there but _this guy_ was."

"Derek." she says almost defiantly.

"What?"

"His name is Derek."

He looks confused for a moment, like he's not sure why their conversation's taken a slight turn, but he chooses to ignore it and Addison decides not to bring it up again.

Damon's going to do what Damon's going to do and she's along for the ride whether she likes it or not.

"You want a beer?" he asks, crossing to the refrigerator for his second bottle but she shakes her head. She's foggy and tired enough from the whiskey earlier, and the last thing they need is to both be out cold when Derek wakes and starts making all kinds of noise to alert the neighbours.

She shakes her head and he shrugs. "Suit yourself."

Instead, she flicks on the coffee machine so she doesn't have to work quite so hard to fight sleep. Her limbs protest at the movement but eventually the water begins to drip through the filter and the smell begins to stir her senses enough that not every blink is quite so difficult.

Later, when Damon's sinking something like his sixth or seventh beer and she's on coffee mug number three, there's an almighty bang from down in the basement. She looks towards him but already knows it's going to be her that goes down there - his eyes are glazed and she knows he's going to be unsteady on his feet, and so she rises from the couch, suppressing the sigh that's threatening to escape.

She clicks the light on first, waits the seemingly endless period of time where the light jumps on and off again repeatedly until it finally stays on and she can head down the stairs.

"Hey." she hisses at him, "Shut up!"

The guy doesn't seem to get her memo though, and continues thrashing around, testing the strength of the wire which doesn't look like it'll hold too well if he keeps it up.

She repeats her words, voice a little louder and a little more aggressive, but he still doesn't stop his movements. He sounds pained: breathing ragged and laboured and it's only when Addison inches just a little closer that she realises he's not fully-present.

He looks panicked.

In body, he is of course, but his mind has to be somewhere else, she figures. That being said, he's currently being held in a basement so she supposes maybe his mind has retreated somewhere else. Somewhere else though that's not possibly worse than this.

"Shepherd!" she says, even louder still as she kicks the bottom of his left boot with her own. It appears to do the trick and his head snaps up in her direction revealing bloodshot eyes and agony etched into his forehead. She swallows, feeling her stomach lurch as she watches him take in his surroundings and realise where he is.

"Would please stop making so much noise."

He just stares at her like she's speaking a foreign language and he looks so much like a small child in that moment that she even considers untying him, telling him to run and not look back. But she can't do that of course - can't even _attempt_ to clean up this mess that Damon has created for them because it's _always_ going to come back and bite them.

Jail she could take, she figures.

Damon going to jail, she could cope with - it's not like it would be the first time - but leaving Milo? That would break her, and so she silently chides herself for even thinking about the man in front of her as a person.

It's not going to help anyone.

"What does he think he's going to get from keeping me down here?" Derek finally says, his voice rough and scratchy.

Addison clamps her mouth closed, refusing without words to be drawn into conversation with him.

"He's going to kill me?"

Again, she remains stoic, absently running her fingers along her arms. It's damn near freezing down in that basement and she doesn't miss the fact he's only wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He's got to be even colder than she is. Still, she figures it won't matter much anyway after a few days or whenever it is that Damon decides to end this situation.

"Stay quiet." is all she says before turning to leave. She's almost at the top of the stairs when he calls out to her.

"If he's going to kill me anyway, why does it even matter?"

She clicks off the light and shuts the door without an answer.

By the time she returns to the livingroom, Damon's near to passed out and she seriously considers running.

Packing a bag upstairs quickly, grabbing Milo and the car and driving until the gas runs out.

She wants to go home to Connecticut.

But the practicalities of it all keep her firmly in this house; there's nowhere to run to, no one to seek out to - not without money at least - and Damon's never given her any more than what she needs for diapers and formula and other essentials along those lines.

She wants to go to bed. Wants so desperately to stretch out beneath the sheets, drift off and then wake up to realise this was simply a vivid nightmare, and yet she knows it isn't possible. They can't both possibly sleep at the same time - not without a lock on that basement door at least - and it's obvious that Damon's not going to be the one on watch tonight.

Looking at the man now passed out on the couch, she makes her way to the kitchen, and more specifically, to the drawer next to the refrigerator. She takes out the 9mm Glock and turns it over in her hands, dusting her forefinger over the trigger. It's heavier than she remembers - it's not often she's had it in her hands but ever since the day she had the barrel of a gun pressed up against her own cheek, she's made target practice a priority. When Milo came along, it was the one thing she made Damon get for her.

She carries it upstairs with her towards the room where he's sleeping, puts it down on the changing table while she lifts him from the crib, careful not to jostle and wake him. He barely stirs, just nuzzles his head against her chest somewhat subconsciously, and she feels such a rush of love for him in that moment that it's almost overwhelming. Nobody had told her much about what to expect about having a kid.

Mountains of dirty diapers - sure - an endless drain on money you don't have, a constant interruption of sleep, but never this. Nobody has ever said she'd feel so incredibly protective and afraid - always afraid that someone or something might come and steal him from her. Milo came with the question of why Bizzy clearly hadn't felt the same towards her and her brother; why it had been so easy for her to walk away without a second glance, why hadn't she tried stopping the Captain from throwing her out of the house that night, why hadn't she made any effort as a mother to check up on her.

Just a visit is all she wants.

She breathes a kiss into his dark curls and grabs the blanket from his crib, draping it over him before picking the gun back up and heading back downstairs. She settles on the couch next to Damon, Milo snuggled in against her chest in his red pyjamas, his tiny eyelids flickering with the indication of a dream. She hopes it's a good one, hopes that his world - especially in sleep - will always remain safe and happy.

The gun stays by her side in case Derek manages to break free of the wire binding his wrists to the radiator. She hopes more than anything it won't come to that, but she knows if she needs to keep her son safe, she won't hesitate in cocking that gun and pulling the trigger.

* * *

Dawn breaks weakly, the sun barely stuttering out enough light for the streetlamps to turn off, and before long it's snowing again. She feeds her son, changes him and dresses him warmly enough that they can go to the store for cable wires and ropes without him catching a cold, all with the gun by her side.

He smiles when she bounces him, squeals and giggles at the raspberry she blows against his stomach while he's lying on the changing table, and protests with only minimal fuss when she tries to force his arms inside of the snowsuit.

By the time she comes downstairs, Damon's waking groggily and so she flicks on the coffee machine, Milo balanced on her hip so she can wrap the scarf around his neck to hold the hood of his snowsuit over his head.

"I'll head to the hardware store," she says flatly. "Get some rope and cable wires."

Damon runs a hand over his face and nods.

"I'm going to need some money."

"There's money in his wallet. Take it from there." he tells her, groaning as he rises from the couch. She does as Damon instructs, slipping the two twenties into her pocket and then adding a couple tens too - just in case. Maybe she should take it all but there's something stopping her; a warped sense of right and wrong, maybe, whispers of a conscience fighting its way to the surface.

She almost leaves without asking the question, but the words manage to fight their way out of her mouth.

"What are you going to do?"

"I'll figure it out."

And yet, she's almost certain he won't. That blind faith she had in him back when she was a teenager and looking for any kind of guidance and love he was willing to give, have slipped away over the years, since eroded by the increasing evidence that he's calculating, yes, but not calculating _enough_.

Not clever _enough_.

Not good _enough_.

Not worthy _enough_.

He is never _enough_.

But there's no turning back time now.

"Okay." she tells him, because it's much easier than _we're screwed_.

She buys the rope and cable wires with Milo's innocent eyes watching her movements, watching as she becomes even more complicit in this kidnap-slash-hostage situation. She wonders whether this will become something that will screw him up later in life - one of those childhood experiences you don't necessarily remember but that is stored in your subconscious so you end up conditioned to act in a certain way. And if it doesn't, Addison decides, she's certain she'll screw him up eventually anyway, because _who is she kidding?_

Love alone will never be enough to ensure he'll have a good life.

The snow doesn't let up for the journey back, nor does it cease when she reaches the house and closes the door to the freezing air.

She hands Damon the supplies first and then proceeds to unbundle Milo from his snowsuit, setting him in the little pen in the corner of the room so she can take off her own coat.

"You'll have to buy the lock," she says. "It would've looked suspicious if I got it with all these stuff." she gestures to the bag.

"Uh, yeah." he agrees, like he hadn't even thought of it, and that's what worries her more than anything - the lack of planning. Like when they would lie on the hood of her car and talk about their future like they had a clue.

Five years later, she's here, nowhere, with a boyfriend who works for she-doesn't-ever-want-to-know-who for a living, a baby she can't support on her own and the life she always hears as story and says she'll never have.

"I'll head out later."

She nods and stifles a yawn. It's approaching thirty hours that she's been awake now and she knows there'll be at least another couple more before she can get some much needed sleep.

"I'll go re-tie him. Bring the gun."

She does as he says and they head down into the basement together. Derek's watching them as they descend, his eyes showing that he, too, has had minimal - if any - sleep in the past day. There are bruises rising on his skin - purples and greens and yellows littering his arms to display the results of being half-thrown down the stairs last night.

"Stay still," Damon instructs him. "She'll fire if you try to make a run for it."

Derek focuses his attention on her then, and she feels her skin burn under his stare. His eyes, the bluest ocean, fixes on her finger - the one that's resting on the trigger - and she wills it not to shake, not to betray the hammering of her heart.

She have never, herself, gotten into anything this illegal before. Never to this extent.

She stares at him and is almost certain she sees his lips twitch - not a smile ( _barely a hint of one, really_.) - but it's enough of a movement to register in her sleep-deprived brain.

His eyes returns back to hers and she swears there's something in them that isn't the hate there ought to be - a plea, maybe, or hope that she'll be the one to rectify all of this. And so she takes a step closer to him, angles the gun just a tad little to the left so it's pointing right between his eyes now.

She isn't weak, and she won't allow him to think that she is.

Derek doesn't move when Damon secures the first cable wire around his wrist, nor does he when the second one is secured. And when Damon binds his feet together with a rope, she mentally notes the way his breathing increases, then grows shallower. It's a small victory, she supposes - noticing tiny details like this.

The rope and her gun are triggers of sorts for him and she can use that to her advantage if needed be, and yet for some reason she tells herself it's information for her, not Damon.

He starts to head back upstairs and she notes the fact that he hasn't removed the original wire that was binding Derek's hands to the radiator.

"Aren't you going to take the old ones off?" she asks, instantly regretting her words.

His face darkens but he seems to consider it for a moment. She's only thinking of the what-ifs, there isn't any hidden meaning behind her question.

 _What if he somehow breaks free of the rope and the cable wires?_

 _What if he uses the wire as something to strangle them with?_

But then she realises, too, that it's a signal to Derek that if there is a plan here, it hasn't been fully communicated.

It's her first error, she knows, one that she'll pay for on several accounts to come.

And then she hears a noise. It's only faint, but her ears are already so attuned to the sound of Milo's cries. She tries not to draw any attention to it, creates more noise than she usually would as Damon decides against untying the wire and they head back up the stairs, but this guy has got brains.

 _An even more complex labyrinth of tunnels and chambers_ _just because he's a medical student._

If she's thinking it, then he's most definitely thinking it too.

She's almost certainly he's already picked up the tiny details here and there - honing in on them so that what might be considered a snippet of information to some, becomes the nail to their coffin for them.

"Get some sleep." he tells her once they're back in the livingroom and she's comforting a teary baby. "I'll watch him."

Suddenly, she's overcome with a desperate need to stay awake. To spend every last minute with her son. "It's okay."

"Addie, we can't both be asleep at the same time. If _you're_ tired, _you'll_ slip up."

She rages silently at that. At the suggestion that _she'll_ be the one to bring about the inevitable awful end to all of this. And yet, she knows he's right, and she can't risk Milo being hurt, so she hands him to his dad before dropping a kiss to his crown.

Her bed, unsurprisingly, isn't the comforting haven she needs. It's cold without Damon there to warm her up, and the room's too bright, even in the pathetic excuse for daylight.

Every time her eyes closes, it's a different image, but each equally as haunting as the last; Damon whacking Derek with the barrel of his gun; him tumbling down the stairs into the basement; the bruises on his arms and face; Milo's innocent stare as she bought the supplies at the hardware store; the raw redness of Derek's blue eyes; her own shaking finger poised over the trigger.

If anything, her bed and the fitful almost-sleep it's bringing, is hell.

* * *

 ** _Hey guys! Thanks so much for reading! What do you think of this world for Addison and Derek? I'd love to know your thoughts!_**

 ** _REVIEW!_**


	2. Blue Eyes (2)

**_Addison and Derek's first meeting. Addek Angst (-ish). Set in a very very alternate universe. . . ._**

* * *

 **Blue Eyes**

(2)

* * *

She looks like shit and she knows it. It's not a secret that she tries to rectify in any way since she clearly can't fix what's already been long broken.

The bathroom mirror all but shouts out those words to her, a not-so-gentle reminder of the horrible person she have become, who's staring back at her with red-rimmed eyes and cold, greying skin.

She looks old, she thinks.

Old for twenty-three, with a messy ponytail and chewed nails and a constant expression of resignation, like she had signed up for _this_ life ( _which she knows she kind of had._ ) and had known all along that it will end badly. The only time that expression of hers lightens and when she actually smiles is when she sees Milo. She reserves the last remnants of her energy solely for him.

He's really all she's got, her family who'll never disown her ( _well, hopefully._ ), because her brother too had resigned from contacting her when she got pregnant. She haven't seen him in a little over a year. Not since she told him she was expecting and was thrilled about starting a family.

 _"Excited? Do you think this child is going to make your life any easier? Have you even thought about how you're going to provide for this child? You're being selfish, Addison, bringing a child into your world when you've got nothing figured out. Why are you doing this? You're smart. You're a Montgomery. So, why are you doing this to yourself? For love? Because - news flash, baby sister - that doesn't exist."_

It wasn't for love, she thinks. Maybe partially, at one time it may be, but definitely not wholly.

But she was - _is_ in love with him. She was head-over-heels for the man that made her into a woman she don't seem to recognise anymore.

She've always prided herself on not caring what others thought about her. She took pride in knowing what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. She was confident in who she was and who she wanted to be. She was the girl that had it all together ( _as together as a normal teen can be._ ).

But then, she fell in love.

She fell for a boy that began to change who she was. Oh, it's not his fault though. She began to change because she wanted to make him happy, not because he asked her to.

It started when she began to care what people thought of her because he did. He cared about the opinions of the people he introduced her to, so she began to ... care as well.

She knew exactly what she wanted out of life. She knew what career she wanted ( _a world class surgeon that all hospitals wants on their board_.), where she wanted to live ( _in a brownstone on the Upper East Side or Brooklyn Heights._ ).

It didn't line up with his plans, though.

So, then she began second guessing the life she had planned out for herself. The life that she had been working so hard to achieve. A life that she was set on for as long as she can remember.

But she had to fit her life around his.

She didn't just second guess her plans, but she was second guessing herself too. She wasn't as confident in herself and the person that she was.

That's because this person isn't her.

Not anymore at least.

This is who she thinks he needs her to be. This is the woman that she feel like she have to be to earn his love.

But if he _does_ need her to be this woman, he's not worth it.

 _Right?_

No man is worth losing yourself over.

No man worth anything would ever dream of letting her go down this road.

 _Right?_

But she's so deep in this mess that she don't think she can ever see herself crawling out of this hole that she had dug for herself all those years ago, because once you lose yourself, you lose your worth too. And she has. She's a laughingstock to the society she once upon a time was a part of. She have become a woman she doesn't recognise and have a hard time believing in. She have become that someone that can't stand to look herself in the mirror because every time she does, she sees the face of the woman she used to be, and aspired to be.

 _Dr. Addison Adrianne Forbes Montgomery_

 _What else can she do about it now?_

Damon decides on a plan of action while she's settling her son to sleep. He tells her he'll drive back to the apartment belonging to Derek's friend and watch out for him, figure out his route, so he can catch him off guard without any witnesses, alert him about his friend's fate if he doesn't pay what he owes - plus interest.

" _Interest_?" she asks dumbly, stroking Milo's hair away from his face. She wishes she could sleep as peacefully as he does - always untroubled and soothed simply by the palm of her hand.

"C'mon. He's gotta be worth a lot more than a couple hundreds." he answers from the doorway. "And it's his friend down there."

"How much?" she asks, knowing the answer is going to be high. Too high.

" _Five_."

"Hundred?"

"Grand."

"Five thousand dollars?" she asks in something close to disbelief, except it's a whispered shriek because she can't have Derek hear Milo cry, can't have him know there's an innocent child in all of this ridiculousness - if he hasn't figured that one out already.

"Car heater's broke. You wanna keep this place warm all day like a princess. He needs diapers and formula and crap." he replies, nodding his head towards their sleeping child. "And we can't have word getting around that customers aren't paying."

And there it is - the real reason for this sudden leap in raise, she supposes. And yet, Addison knows he's right in maintaining his stance on being paid timely because dealing, as she now have come to now, is a chain and as soon as one of the links breaks, it works its way to the top. Words just like a juicy gossip spreads like wildfire and the last thing they need is someone beating down _their_ door - or worse, an obvious cliché - demanding that they too get paid.

He makes to leave after she closes the door behind her, gun already back in hand despite the new lock on the basement door, and tells her he'll be back in an hour or two.

"Just watching, right?" she checks, watching his eyes to see if the resulting "right," is a lie or not.

"Promise?"

" _Promise_."

His kiss makes her feel queasy, and yet she offers her lips again anyway. He tastes like whiskey and cigarettes. He tastes like _him_.

"Be careful Damon." she says. He doesn't give her a reply, just simply heads out of the door to his car.

She busies herself with tidying, washing up the few plates and mugs from earlier, straightening the few photographs on the mantle until she's almost certain that the last of her energy has been consumed.

She sinks onto the couch with a loud crackle of her joints, closes her eyes and sucks in a breath she's not entirely sure she wants to let back out again, but of course, she does. _For Milo_. Only for that little boy upstairs with his dad's dark hair and his dad's dark eyes and his dad's everything. His personality though, she hopes, will be the one thing he gets from her.

She's picturing their son's future as a doctor or maybe a lawyer or a teacher or something else good, great, something so much better than the culmination of his parents, and that's when she hears it, a clanging accompanied with a rapid shout.

 _Shit!_

Her stomach lurches, heart sinking so far so fast that she nearly hurls all over the livingroom floor. Maybe, she figures, it's a one-off kind of thing, a test of their word that if he made a noise, they'll shoot.

But then, it comes again, louder this time and so she grabs her gun, that's resting by her side as it always is now. She won't have him wake Milo and risk his cries, so she rises with tired, aching limbs that are screaming for any kind of respite she can grant them.

The key for the lock on the basement door lives in the kitchen drawer where her gun always used to be. Addison takes it in her shaking left hand, willing her fingers to still so as not to give anything away or just the fact that she doesn't like what they're doing to him.

The lightbulb performs its usual flickering until it finally stays on in order to light the room below the house.

Her descent of the stairs is like something from a movie, she concludes, as she takes each purposeful steps and finally reaches the bottom, she takes in Derek's hunched body. She's not entirely sure how he has managed to get himself into that position with all that rope binding his hands and feet, but he has and now it's up to her to do something about this noise.

"Hey, Shepherd." she hisses, keeping her distance as she aims her gun at his face. "Would you stop it with the noise."

He turns to her then, his face screwed and eyes so, so red that he looks something like the protagonist in a horror film. The words he speaks, though, are so much softer than the noise he's been making that she wonders how on earth they could come from the same person.

"I need the bathroom."

 _Well shit, she hadn't thought of that._

She shrugs, unsure of what else to do.

There's no toilet down here and she's not about to untie him so he can use the bathroom upstairs.

"There's a bucket over there," he continues, indicating the far side of the room with his head. "I can use that if you would bring it over."

 _Is this a test?_

She looks at him, arches her brow, then narrows her eyes, because _why on earth is this guy speaking to her like she's anything but a monster?_

He stares right back, his face marred with bruises and so she looks away, can't bring herself to look any longer at what Damon has done.

What they've both done, she supposes.

She doesn't recall the moment she decides to get the bucket. It's not a conscious decision evidently, and she only realises she's done it when she's setting down the black tub, Damon uses to wash the car in the summer, beside Derek.

"You're going to have to untie my hands."

She scoffs, then. "You really think I'm going to do that?"

"I'll miss."

"I'll take my chances." she replies, not even sure why she's engaging in this conversation with him.

She should just walk away and let him figure out the mechanics of it all, but, no, she's here, conversing and looking into his blue eyes.

"You can keep the gun pointed at me." he says, cringing slightly at the sight of the barrel, "Keep my feet tied. But I need my hands free. I can't undo my zipper without them."

She considers his words for a moment, conjures up the scenarios in her head - she unzipping his jeans, him peeing all over the floor and himself.

"He's upstairs." she lies. "Try and escape and he'll kill you and your friend."

He stares at her then, really stares at her like he's taking in every last minuscule detail of her face, like he's searching something within her.

 _What?_

She can't bare it - the intensity of his gaze - and so she moves the gun, points it at his chest and then back up to the space between his eyes in order to shift his focus. He seems to realise her decision though, and turns his wrist slightly so they're pointing up. Addison wonders if whether the cable wires might be too loose, if he can do this on his own, and so she vows to make the next set tighter.

The knot Damon's tied in the rope is haphazard - no real finesse to the way he's looped the ends and so it proves easier to loosen than she might have suspected. Her gun is by her feet, far enough away that Derek can't reach it, with the barrel pointing at him.

"Okay." she says, picking it up again before undoing the knot fully. "You've got one minute."

"What about the cable wires?"

"You'll manage." she replies flatly.

Derek starts to turn and her heartbeat ramps up another fifty paces a minute.

"Hey! Hey!" Her voice is teetering on the edge of panic and cry and she silently curses herself for betraying her exterior. "Face me."

"You can't even give me this last shred of dignity?" he asks, the emotion in his eyes halfway between anger and desperation.

For some reason, she thinks of Milo. Thinks, _God-forbid_ , what if it were him in someone's basement, tied to a radiator in the freezing cold and being made to pee in a bucket?

Something inside of her chest tugs. She simultaneously knows and doesn't want to acknowledge what it is. It was never there before she became a mother, but Milo has made her softer in these past few months than she's ever been before. She knows it's a weakness in this situation, knows too, that it will get her into trouble.

 _Does he have a parents that thinks of him? A loving and caring mother, maybe._

But Derek is not Milo and she shakes her head. "Forty seconds."

He complies and Addison holds in the sigh of relief threatening to tumble out of her mouth as he loosens his jeans, letting them tumble down to his ankles in surrender to this showcase of the loss of dignity she's subjecting him to.

She shivers as she's watching, her flesh goosebumping under her sweater, but she still stands straight, aiming the gun at the man in front of her. It occurs to her that Derek must be absolutely freezing down here. The radiator he's tied to hasn't worked for as long as she can remember, and the heat from the house won't do any good when hot air only rises.

He finishes and she moves forward, indicating his previous sitting place with the Glock. He complies without question and once he's settled back down beside the radiator, she sets the gun on the concrete - barrel always pointing towards him - and takes the rope in her hands.

She knows he's watching her face the entire time, knows even without looking that his eyes are reading her and so she does her very best to remain impassive, like binding someone twice her size to a radiator is something she does ever-so routinely.

Once she slips the rope over his wrists however, taking care to note exactly how much room the cable wire allocates between them, she hears him suck in a breath, senses his focus is no longer on her, but on something else. She continues to twist the rope around into the figure nine knot she had learned how to knot at school when a cub scout instructor came to recruit more kids under the guise of teaching her fifth grade 'survival skills'. The only real survival skills she's learned came as a result of Bizzy being her mother. Funny enough, stripping bark off branches so she can toast marshmallows around a fire hasn't ever been a situation she's encountered in the daily.

When she tugs on the rope to ensure its stability, Derek lets out a noise - not so much a grunt or a wince, but some similar hybrid that makes her appraise him.

His eyes are closed now, head turned away from her and that's when she sees the sweat beading on his forehead.

It must be close to freezing down here - no more than forty degrees she suspects - and so whatever he's feeling as a result of the rope and gun must be pretty horrific, she figures.

Thing is, it's not like she can ask him if he's okay, the answer to that is always going to be something worse than a 'no' and so she opts for something else, figuring it'll shift his attention and make him feel somewhat better.

"Are you hungry?"

She doesn't know why she asks him that. What good she's going to gain from his answer, and yet he does turn his head at her words, opens an eye, then the other, checks ( _she surmises._ ) that he's still here in this God-awful basement.

"No."

And yet he hasn't eaten for over two days and hasn't drunk either - as far as she knows.

"A drink then?"

"So, you can watch me piss into a bucket again?" he says, words clipped and cutting, and yet she knows she has no right to feel any sort of sting. _But she does_. She's the one keeping him down here right now after all.

"On average, a human can only last three days without water."

Already, something's telling her that Derek Shepherd isn't average.

"Why does it matter if he's going to kill me anyway?"

"He just wants to get paid." she tells him, lies to him. "It's not about killing you."

He scoffs and she wonders where he's drawing this strength from when he's been beaten and bound and kept down here, made to pee in front of her, had a gun pointed at him about a dozen times already, all in a span of five minutes.

"How much?"

"Five thousand."

This time, he lets out something of a laugh. A crisp, staccato burst of air that's barely even tinged with humour, but she supposes that's what it's meant to represent. "You might as well tell your boyfriend to kill me now."

It'd be easier, she thinks. Easier if Damon killed him now before this runs on any longer than it already has, but she knows he won't. Knows he's too desperate that he'll wait until he's been paid - in whatever way and capacity that may be - and so she settles on the words. "He'll get paid."

Derek says nothing more and so she heads up the stairs silently too, shuts and locks the basement door even though she'll have to re-open it in a few minutes anyway. She checks on Milo first to make sure he's stayed ignorant to all of this, kisses his head and strokes her fingers over his tiny upturned palm, smiling as it twitches, before heading back to the kitchen.

There aren't any bottles of water in the refrigerator, nor cans of soda, but she spies a juice box on the top shelf next to the eggs and figures it'll do.

Gun back in her right hand, she heads back down to Derek, stopping in front of him with the realisation she's going to have to hold the juice box for him.

 _Why couldn't she have just given him tap water?_

She've always made things not easy for herself.

"Here." she says gruffly. "There's no water so this will have to do."

She pierces the hole with the straw and puts it to his lips, but he doesn't open them. If anything, he purses them close even tighter.

"I haven't got all day, Shepherd."

That's when she spots the goosebumps covering his red flesh. She realises then, that this pursed stance he's in is because he's conserving his energy, trying to stop himself from losing anymore bodyheat. And so, making her next mistake in all of this, she bends so she can catch his gaze, get him to look at her all without saying any words.

When his lips part slightly, she forces the straw in as gently as she can. It takes a few seconds, but finally she sees the purple liquid begin to move up the straw as he sucks. He stares at her the entire time, and as uncomfortable as it is, she remains there, crouched in front of him as he consumes what's in the box.

She rises once he's done, feeling that inevitable burn in her thighs and the slight pull of the scar on her lower abdomen but does her best to ignore both.

"I'll, uh, bring you a sweater." she tells him. "It's cold down here."

He doesn't reply as she backs away, gun pointed towards him at all times, even when she's heading back up the stairs.

She's only just locked the basement door and begun to make her way to the kitchen when she hears a key in the lock, manages somehow to turn and aim the gun, only to see Damon entering the house with a hand up.

"Woah! Jesus, Addison."

Her heart's hammering in her ears and she can hear nothing but that and a high-pitched continuous noise - something like ringing. Damon's talking to her she knows, because she can see his lips moving, but no words are reaching her brain. He's coming towards her slowly, hands reaching out until it makes contact with her wrist, and only then does her senses return fully in a rush of noise.

"Calm the fuck down." he's telling her. "You want a drink?"

She's nodding and all of a sudden desperate for that burning sensation that comes with gulping too much whiskey at once. The sweater she was about to head upstairs for is all but forgotten, and she wonders as she brings the glass Damon gives her to her lips with a shaking hand - how the hell she's going to keep going.

* * *

She dreams of his eyes. The burning blue intensity that he stared at her with while she held the juicebox for him to drink from. The dream though, is interrupted by Milo's cries, at which she jumps from the couch with a pounding heart and no real sense of what time it is.

She's up the stairs and soothing him before she has chance to catch her breath and it's only when she leans against the crib to steady herself that she realises it's still light outside, still the same day in which she'd allowed Derek to think he has any chance of getting out of that awful basement, still the same life she's awoken to.

"Hey." she tries her best to coo, attempting to keep her voice from wavering despite her son's piercing cries and a headache she's only just become attuned to. "It's alright."

That's a lie and she knows it. Milo, it seems, knows it too - judging by the continuous scream leaving his lungs. He must be hungry, she determines, having missed his feed because she was sleeping. And now she feels like even more of a crappy mother, feels even more like Bizzy, but her mother never leave her hungry because she has nannies to do her responsibilities for her.

But that's and she's still better than her.

She has no idea where Damon is right now. Figures he could've been next to her on the couch, or maybe he was down in the basement or fixing something to eat in the kitchen.

In her haste to get upstairs though, she's forgotten her gun. It's a dilemma between putting Milo back in the crib so she can go down and get it - risk only herself if Derek has somehow gotten out of the basement - and just keeping Milo pressed to her chest and in a ( _most probably_ ) futile attempt to shush him while she makes a bottle.

Keeping him where her wins are, because if she does put him down now, he'll only scream louder, and so she makes her way downstairs to the kitchen.

"Damon?" She asks lowly, keeping her voice steady in case Derek can hear. No answer comes but as she passes the door to the basement, she sees the lock in place, signalling that if he is still here, so is Derek.

Milo's cries turn to whimpers as she spoons the formula into the bottle, silently curses herself for not having made some already so all she had to do was heat it up, and shushes him softly.

She only realises she's shivering once the baby has finished his bottle and she's paused long enough to properly catch her breath, and that's when she's reminded of the sweater she was going to get for Derek . She waits a while though, rocking Milo backwards and forwards even after he's long since drifted back to sleep - the motion more of a comfort for her by now, she figures.

She settles him back on the soft mattress of his crib, tucks the blanket in around him and then adds another from the little cupboard that houses his tiny items smelling like baby powder and sweet milk so he's not cold.

In her own drawers, she rakes to the bottom to find an old sweater of Damon's that he won't notice missing, then one for herself. She settles on a grey one for Derek - something inconspicuous that Damon either won't recognise as his own, or won't care about when she makes up the story about wanting him to think he's going to get out, giving him reason not to make enough noise to alert the neighbours - and then rethinks the sweater for herself, putting the navy one back because it swamps her small frame and the last thing she needs is for Derek to realise how slight she is.

She can't let him think he has a chance, and he does, to overpower her, when time comes. She's the one with the gun, though, and still she's apprehensive to shoot.

She checks Milo before heading back downstairs, leans against the doorframe as his tiny chest rises up and down so rhythmically that if she stayed there long enough, she might even drift off herself.

Her body is so achingly tired that she figures she might drop asleep anywhere at this point, but then a noise sounds from down in the basement and her veins are all aflame again, fizzing and humming with panic. Heading down there on her own terms is one thing but descending those stairs because Derek has forced her to is something else.

Gun in her right hand and the grey sweater in the other, she unlocks the door and clicks on the light. Once it's usual stuttering is over, she heads down the stairs, shoes clacking against the wood.

"What?" she snaps, aiming the gun at the man in the corner in an attempt to portray confidence. It's easier to stick to single syllables during all of this since that stops her voice from wavering quite so uncontrollably.

"I need the bathroom."

"You went earlier." she replies, swallowing as she takes in his red skin and blueing lips.

"Yeah, well, you gave me a juice box."

"Hold it." she throws the sweater towards him as some sort of distraction. "Here."

Derek looks up at her then, his eyes softening just a little as he fingers the soft material with what little room for manoeuvre he has. "This _his_?"

 _His,_ being Damon's. "Whose it going to be?"

He drops it then, lets the material fall to the floor in a puddle at his feet. "I don't want it."

"It's cold down here."

"I said I don't want it." His voice is stronger this time. Louder. More assertive.

"You're freezing."

And that's the next mistake she makes, touching him to prove a point. Her bare fingertips against his bare forearm and it makes her jump - the ferocity of the jolt that flies through her at their contact.

She hears herself gasp, then stumbles backwards away from him, and yet he's staring at her like a rabbit caught in headlights like he, himself, doesn't know what that was all about.

"Suit yourself, then." she all but whispers.

"Bathroom?" he queries softly, his voice dropping an infinite number of octaves from his earlier harsh statement.

She swallows, her throat feeling like sandpaper and her tongue too clumsy in her mouth. His eyes are still rimmed with red, puffed underneath from lack of sleep, but he's staring at her with such purpose that he looks so infinitely alert. From somewhere though, she manages to find her voice, rough and terse in the stillness of the basement.

"Hold it."

 _Please._

She exits at that, prays to herself that he won't call out or clatter the pipes so that it echoes throughout the whole house - inside and out. And somehow, her prayers are answered because she makes it back up into the hallway, locks the basement door behind her and heaves out a shaking breath. The last thing she wants to admit is that such a small encounter has rattled her, and yet she knows it has. Knows too, that if she wants to keep him quiet, she's going to have to go back down there with food and a sweater that isn't Damon's, going to have to go down there mentally prepared to allow his bathroom needs, to touch him when she loosens the knot in the rope, to make up some lie about his future - that he even has one.

Her stomach gurgles, reminding her she hasn't eaten in what feels like forever, even though she's felt constantly sick for the past few days, and so she collects herself enough to make it to the kitchen to rifle through the cupboards for something to make. There's a box of mac and cheese in there and she pulls it out, knocking over some cornmeal that spills all across the counter top, and curses as she surveys the mess it makes.

She follows the instructions on the box even though she's made this pasta a hundred times before, manages to pour out too much milk and then ends up with a lumpy sauce that pretty much resembles vomit in a pan. Still, she stirs it over the pasta and divides the contents between two bowls, takes one between her hands and leans back against the counter with its cornmeal mess while she stabs each noodle with her fork, chewing what's in her mouth and swallowing without really tasting it.

Once she's done, she sets the bowl beside the sink and takes a spoon from the drawer, holds it in between her fingers as she picks up the other dish of mac and cheese. A fork might be able to do some damage, she figures, but nobody ever has gotten injured from being attacked with a spoon. That's when she spies the blanket draped over the back of the couch - the one that's a little threadbare and has been relegated to stand in only when her favoured one is in the wash. It'll do, she figures, for keeping the man in her basement warm enough not to catch hypothermia in one of New York's coldest winters.

Thing is, if she holds the blanket, she can't keep the gun pointed at him, but she also doesn't want to head down there and come straight back up again. So, she makes a choice to drape it around her neck, takes care not to stumble over the ends of it when she descends those basement stairs for the second time in a half hour, and clicks the light on again.

"I brought you something to eat." she tells him dumbly, like he's not intelligent enough to work out that the bowl of pasta is for him. "And uh ... something to keep you warm."

He looks up at her, something flickering in his eyes that she can't discern ( _and she probably shouldn't try to._ ) and she sets the bowl down beside her feet, then hands over the blanket. "It's mine." Not a lie, though not exactly the whole truth either.

His hands brushes hers, fingertips skirting fingertips as she makes the exchange, but she's prepared this time, stilling her body before it reacts and gives anything away.

"Thanks."

He shouldn't be thanking her. Not for any of it, and his response makes her feel insanely guilty, the one syllable thick with sincerity when all she is is a fraud.

"You going to untie me?"

"I'm not going to feed you myself."

It's easier to be sharp with him. It's safe too.

"Okay." he answers cautiously, his gaze boring into her while she sets down the gun, barrel pointing towards him. Always.

Un-looping the rope isn't difficult in itself, but when she's making sure to keep skin to skin to a minimum, to prevent whatever it is that happens when they touch, the challenge proves significantly harder.

She's close enough to him, to feel his breath on her cheek, to smell the faint mix of mint and cinnamon that comes from chewing Big Red, and her heart rate ramps up unexpectedly at their overwhelming proximity. At the thought too, that she's taking a huge risk here in allowing him such a small slice of freedom - albeit only in that of his arms.

"You think since you're untying me, I could use the bathroom?"

She knows she should say no, just to remind him again who it is that has the power here, but there's something inside of her telling her he doesn't need that - knows that the hierarchy was already established the moment Damon brought him into the car and as she drove them here.

"Okay."

She passes him the bucket from earlier and turns to a side so she can see everything he's doing if she chooses to.

He pees and she tries to conjure up a scenario in which they'll get out of this without incident, casualties, but it never comes.

Once he's done, he sits back down and she hands him the bowl of mac and cheese - long since having gone cold - and yet he wolfs it down like it's a gourmet meal.

He's on his final mouthful when they hear the front door open, both looking up towards the stairs in sync, and then instantaneously back at each other, like children sharing a guilty secret, and she supposes that probably, this might be just that.

" _Addison_?!"

There comes the thunderous voice and she realises all at once that Derek's still untied, Milo's upstairs and could wake any minute at the sudden booming volume, Damon has given away her name, and her heart leaps into her throat, her fingers shoving the rope into some semblance of a knot around his wrists before she has even realised what she's doing.

It's clumsy and haphazard but Damon won't notice.

She just about manages to retrieve the gun from the floor before he makes it to the bottom of the stairs and surveys the blanket and nearly empty bowl, the spoon Derek was using having been kicked to a side during the rush.

"He causing trouble?" he asks.

She knows Derek's eyes are on the floor even without looking. "No. No, I was just reminding him how he needs to stay quiet." she somehow manages through the lump in her throat.

He looks at Derek then, narrows his dark eyes and takes in the blanket and the bowl.

"Next time he's hungry, give him crackers." he instructs. "Don't waste the good stuff."

"My friend pay you yet?" Derek asks suddenly, his voice cutting through the heavy air. She wants to tell him to stop talking, that he shouldn't be opening his mouth to question Damon if he wants his injures to stay at the minimum as it is.

But, of course, she doesn't. Can't get herself to be on Damon's bad side.

She thinks she hears her heart literally stop beating until Damon answers, his voice laced with venom. "You don't get to ask the questions." He follows it up with a sharp kick to Derek's legs, and yet it's her who winces, then silently chides herself for it.

She picks up the bowl and the spoon, tries desperately to fight looking at Derek's face - and fails, the expression drawn upon it etched into her brain ( _probably forever_.) - and makes a right for the stairs.

"Come on." she tells Damon. "I'll make you something to eat."

He complies, miraculously so, although not without a second kick to Derek's leg for good measure.

She all but almost shouts his name. _Damon!_ So he could stop hurting this guy who has done nothing but comply and listen to their demands. But she refrains from using his name in a bid to stop him. She won't slip up the way he did just moments ago.

She locks the basement door and watches as Damon sink onto the couch, still clad in his winter coat despite the significantly warmer heat of the living room.

"Why were you down there?" he asks, not bothering to turn to face her as she heads on into the kitchen. "He making noises?"

"No." she lies. "It's just that we need him to think he's going to get out. You know, to stop him from causing a scene for our neighbours to hear. So, I thought I'd take him something to eat."

Treat him like he's human.

He seems to think it over for a moment before settling for her explanation without further questions.

"Where were you?"

"At work."

She knows that's code for don't ask.

She doesn't press further.

He gets up then, makes his way to her to settles in behind her back and she knows it's meant for reassurance, meant to relax her but she can't, and she ducks out from his arms under the pretence of needing Crisco from the cabinet across from where they were.

She doesn't even know what she's making really, but figures it's going to have to be pancakes now. It's not like there's any chicken in the refrigerator for frying.

"You should get some rest." he decides, taking the tub from her hand. "I'll keep an eye out."

She doesn't want to rest. Not anymore.

"Milo's napping." she sighs. "He'll be up soon. And I've still got that-"

She doesn't really need to sleep. Not anymore.

"I'll take care of it."

"What if -"

"- I'll handle it, Addie." he repeats, and she nods in agreement.

"Okay."

She's halfway out of the room when she turns back, watches the father of her child scoop the shortening from the tub in a way that was so unlike how he was earlier that she feels herself soften just a little.

"You said my name in front of him."

"What?"

"When you came down to the basement. You called out my name."

She watches the realisation cross his face like a grey cloud on a windy day. " _We'll_ be more careful."

 _We._

She nods - only once - and heads upstairs.

* * *

 _ **Hey guys. Thanks for reading. I know this is a weird and sad world for Addison and Derek but rest assured there will be a happy-ish ending. :)**_

 _ **Let me know what you think. REVIEW!**_


	3. Blue Eyes (3)

**_Addison and Derek's first meeting. Addek Angst (-ish). Set in a very very alternate universe. . . ._**

* * *

 **Blue Eyes**

(3)

* * *

She wakes with a start, initially unsure of what it is that had invaded her consciousness enough to rouse her, but once she's blinked blindly into the darkness a few more times, she realises it's Milo's whimpering.

This is why she doesn't rest at all, doesn't want to, because she only gets more tired once she does.

So, she drags herself out of bed, because she has to, shivers into the cold air and makes a mental reminder to ask Damon to fix the window once all of this is over.

If all of this is _ever_ over, she adds.

"Hey there, little guy." she whispers, picking her son up from his crib and noting that he's dressed differently than earlier.

 _Well, Damon's at least taken care of that one._

The baby burrows his little head into her chest in search of her skin and she feels such an overwhelming rush of love for him that she almost can't breathe. It still amazes her how even now after the three months he's been here with them how much she loves him, how utterly perfect he is.

His whimpering subsides and she rocks along with him a little until she hears an almighty thud that freezes her - one that couldn't possibly come from anywhere else other than the basement.

 _Shit!_

"Damon?" she calls without raising her voice too much. She doesn't want to draw Derek's attention to his name like he had with hers and she doesn't want to unsettle Milo either.

There's no answer so she hisses his name louder. " _Damon_?"

 _Well, of course, there's no answer. He's in the basement._

But then she hears another thud, a much much louder one - a bang perhaps - and her stomach drops.

 _Derek._

Milo must have sense her unease because his previous quietness, that all lasted seconds, gave over to a small cry, and then a louder one when she offers her lips to his head. She feels like a terrible mother again and when there's a third thud, that couldn't possibly get even louder, she just has to lay him back down on his crib despite his protest.

The guilt over not being enough for him multiplies tenfold.

She takes the gun and heads downstairs, trying and failing to block out Milo's cries but she can still hear them when she's in the hallway and she already knows, when she spies the open door to the basement, that they'll be heard down there too.

With the Glock out in front of her, she takes a cautious step, first heading to her boots that are sitting by the door, and once they're laced on her feet, she heads down the wooden stairs as quietly as she can.

She opens her mouth to let Derek know she's armed but then thinks better of it in case she needs the element of surprise to help her out.

And as soon as he comes into focus though, she realises what that thudding was all about.

Derek is lying practically motionless on the concrete floor, blood pouring from his nose and pooling beside him. She covers a loud gasp with her hands when her eyes linger south - one of his legs is bent at an angle which makes her think it's probably broken somewhere, and Damon is standing beside him, a little breathless.

"You piece of shit." she catches him spitting at the man they've held here for the past three days, the same man whose eyes are open, albeit barely, and fixing on hers, only on hers.

Now all she wants to do is run.

Run as far away as she can get with Milo, far from this city, from Damon, from this basement and that rope and cable wires and Derek, from the shadows of her past that still follow her everywhere because she's stuck in this life she never signed up for.

She didn't sign up for _this_. ( _That, she knows she did, but not this miserable one. - not to constantly fear whether today will be the day they'll end up in prison, not to have a man chain in their basement._ )

She never intended to end up like this.

And yet she doesn't run. _Ever_. She wants to run so badly but she never can. And she thinks Damon knows that too, that she won't. _Ever_.

She can't run now. She can't because her feet won't move and her mouth won't open and she's not even sure her finger would work if she tries to pull the trigger.

Derek's still staring at her though, almost lifelessly, until Milo's cries filters through to her brain, she registers and turns her head back to the top of the staircase briefly, contemplating if going back up to comfort him is the best idea but she knows this is much bigger.

This mess is what she needs to sort out first.

She turns her attention back to the pool of blood on the floor and Derek's crumpled body and she knows then, that he knows about Milo. Can tell somehow and someway by the way he's looking at her.

 _Shit!_

Only when she takes a final step on one of the creaking stairs does Damon turn around and notice her. He looks at her, then at Derek, then back at the question in her brows. He doesn't say anything to her, only throwing in one last kick for good measure, then heads up the creaking steps without uttering another word.

She's not really sure what she should do now.

 _Follow Damon or check on Derek?_

Somehow following Damon seems easier.

Always has. _Oh, yes, it is._ Maybe that's why she's here today.

"I went to his place. There's cops everywhere." he hisses, stomping into the kitchen and searching for the bottle of brandy she knows he's probably going to drain dry. She's still unaware of the time - the view outside the windows shows nothing but blackness - but it ceases to matter at this present time.

"You went to his place?" she asks, forcing the confusion to fade and tells herself to stay in the same room as him rather than upstairs to comfort Milo. "Why?"

"To get paid. Figured there'd be a car or something I could sell. Pay the debt that way, so we can just kill him already."

Addison's stomach lurches at the thought.

"Where is his friend?"

"In the wind. I don't know. Fuck Addison. You think the cops gonna find out, this leads back here?"

 _Yes._

"Not if his friend comes back. You know where he went?"

"That's what I was trying to find out but that asshole down there wouldn't tell me anything."

She holds in the sigh threatening to leave her lips but it's a harder feat than she'd anticipated. "So, what, you thought beating him up would help?"

She can't help but think how even more ridiculous this mess have become.

"Helps in reminding him who's in control here." He turns with the bottle in his hand, victoriously - if only in regard to finding the alcohol.

"Are you?" She can't help but ask.

Damon's head snaps up at the same time as his eyes narrow venomously.

"Of course."

 _Of course not._

She can't deal with _this_ ridiculousness anymore but she doesn't say that out loud. Though she really _really_ wants to.

Ignoring Milo's cries seems to only get harder and harder by the day and so she heads up to his room, two at a time. Her life now, a never-ending series of staircase these days it seems.

Her son's little arms are outstretched for her when she enters, face is a crimson shade, her heart splintering when she sees the tears on his skin. And that's when it hits her.

If Damon had found out that the cops were at Derek's place, then that can only mean he's either taken their child with him when he went _there_ , or - possibly worse - left him _here_ while she was sleeping.

She scoops Milo from his crib, furious, and shushes him with a promise ( _or like a lie._ ) that he's okay; that she's here, and heads back down to the kitchen.

"When you went to Derek's place earlier," she stomps, not waiting a second to storm accusatory in her tone. "Where was Milo?"

"Here."

"You left our son _here_ , with him in the basement and -"

"- And! And what? You want me to take him with me?!"

"One of us stays awake at all times." she bites. "That's what you said. That's how we'd keep Milo safe."

"He was safe, Addison! There's a lock on the basement door, you sleep with a gun, you -"

"- Get a plan, Damon!" she warns, her tone low and seething.

She can't be the only one doing all the work here anymore and they can't have him down there for too long ( _three days is long enough._ ) and she doesn't want to be here when Damon kills him."Get a fucking plan or we're leaving!"

She will run, if that's the last thing she does, she promises.

She turns to leave, rocking the crying baby in her arms, carefully cradling his head with her palm when she feels a fistful of her red strands being yanked back roughly.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going!"

Her stomach drops, she instinctively holds Milo tighter, almost clawing at the fabric of clothes, startling their son further into an deafening scream, while her other hand tries grasping and digging for anything to hold on to so she wouldn't fall.

"You don't get to tell me what to do!"

She freezes. Shocked. Her heart leaps into her throat as she watches his hands reach out for her, one clawing the neckline of her shirt, the other closing around her wrist. She didn't even have enough time to cry out because as soon as her brain stops short-circuiting, he jerks her violently towards him and then, pushes her up against the wall, hard. She hears the back of her head smack against the concrete. She feels it too.

 _Shit!_

She winces.

"What are you doing?"

His hands tightens around her and a bubble of panic rises in her throat as their son in between only cries out louder. She shakes her head and raises her free hand to push futilely against his chest, trying to twist her body away.

"Let go! Stop it! Damon!"

And suddenly he's leaning up close, flattening her against the wall with his body, bringing his face to hers and hissing in her ear. "You have nowhere to go." he reminds her, "I am your family. Yours doesn't even care about you. _I am your family._ He's my son too. So, don't you dare threaten me like that again."

Her heart seizes any traction. "Okay." she breathes, "Okay. Okay. You're scaring Milo."

He looks down at their son, the lines around his eyes softens, perhaps with shame. He complies and steps back, holding his hands up in surrender.

She burrows Milo higher on her shoulder, feels his hot tears seeping into her shirt. "I'll be in the living room. Is that going to be an issue here." she tells him, picking up the stuffed animals from the floor so she can focus her attention on soothing their child.

She half expects him to follow, to apologise but he doesn't. _Of course_. There's the noise of liquid tipping in the brandy bottle and all she can think of is what just happened.

Damon's never hurt her. Never physically. And no one's ever touched her like that. Nobody. She've never been so terrified. That was a first and that better be the last, because she's leaving if it ever happens again.

 _She will run._

Her breath catches in her throat and a strangled cry tore itself from her lungs.

She will run.

She thinks about Derek and his twisted body lying below them and ... _what if it were Milo?_

Suddenly, she hears the sounds of keys scraping against the counter, followed by Damon's boots on the floor.

"Where are you going?" she asks.

"Out."

"Where?"

"To get a plan."

He says no more, no apologies and shuts the front door behind him.

Addison takes Milo and the stuffed animal and carries them upstairs, setting them in the crib he seems to spend more time in than she'd like. He's content enough though with the little white rabbit and she waits for the noise of the car engine to fade, then fills a plastic bowl with warm water before fishing a clean flannel out of the bathroom cupboard.

With the bowl balancing against her hip and her gun in her other hand, it's hard to manoeuvre her way around without spilling the water. So, she's more than a little damp by the time she makes it down to the basement but it's a small trade-off for having the security of her weapon.

Her breath catches in her throat when she sees Derek lying there, body twisted and already swollen with bruises. She makes her way over tentatively, setting the bowl down first and spilling a little more of the water accidentally.

"Your face," she whispers, shocked even after all of this time at the brutality of the way in which Damon operates sometimes. "You should have just told him."

Derek keeps his lips pursed closed - not that she expects him to talk to her after what she had witnessed ( _and did nothing to stop._ ).

She sets the gun down on the floor, barrel pointed at him like always but he stares at her the whole time, just watching; waiting, she supposes, to see what she'll do. To see whether she'll try and break him too. Except, she decides, he must sense she doesn't have the same intentions as Damon does because he makes no attempt to shy away from her. The silence is overwhelming and the heat of his gaze on her is only making her feel more suffocated, and so she speaks again.

"I brought something to clean you up with."

"You think he isn't going to notice if my face no longer has blood on it?" Derek grits out - the words threatening to betray his pain out loud.

She looks at him for a moment, that power in the blue of his irises - despite the overpowering pain there - threatening to overwhelm her at any moment, but she manages to find some casualness from somewhere deep inside of her, pull it up and out into the room before this all goes horribly wrong. Or, more horribly wrong. "He's not going to be thinking about your face."

She squeezes the water out of the flannel but then as she steps closer, realises the angle he's lying, due to Damon's ministrations, is going to mean the droplets will trickle onto him and so she sets the flannel back in the bowl, wiping her hands on her jeans.

"Do you want to sit up?"

Derek doesn't answer and she figures she can't really blame him. She looks back at his leg and the awkward angle that it's bent at. She could untie him and even if he tried anything, he wouldn't be able to get very far. Besides, she's the one with the gun.

"I'm going to take the rope off," she tells him. "But if you try anything, I'll shoot. Don't forget that."

He still doesn't respond but he's watching her intently as she loosens the knot in the rope, sliding the ends until his wrists are free - expect for the cable wires. He pulls them in towards his chest and she notes the redness of his skin where the plastic has grated it away.

"Your wrists are sore." she tells him, like it's a fact he might just have overlooked in the grand scheme of things. Her words are clumsy and she regrets them the instant they leave her mouth but for some reason, Derek responds.

"Tried to pull the tie off. Obviously it didn't work."

Addison isn't sure what makes her make the offer she does - stupidity, probably - but yet, "If I cut it, do you promise not to do anything?"

"My legs are tied to this radiator." he says. "And I'm pretty sure this one is fractured at the very least. Couldn't get far if I tried."

The thought should comfort her somewhat - at least in this situation - but it doesn't. It just sends another wave of guilt washing over her. "I'll be back in a minute."

She practically races up the stairs and to the kitchen, almost forgetting the gun in her haste. Grabbing the pair of scissors and a couple more cable wires from the drawer and with an ear out for Milo who thankfully remains quiet, she heads back down more cautiously, gun aimed at Derek until she's sure he hasn't moved. Again, she sets it by her side - barrel end pointing his way - and reminds him not to do anything stupid. The wire breaks with one clean cut and she lifts away the plastic gently, careful not to slide it against the broken skin.

It takes some effort and she can't not hear the wince that escapes his lips when he pulls his body up into a sitting position, and with her help, Derek finally arranges himself so his leg is at what she supposes might be a more comfortable angle.

"Thank you." he tells her softly; so softly she feels like a fraud. He shouldn't be thanking her for anything. Rather than say that however, she just nods and squeezes the excess water from the flannel.

He watches her the entire time.

Eyes boring into hers each time she looks up from the bowl of water which is now pink-brown with his blood. It's smothering, the way he looks at her sometimes, and she only notices when she wipes at his forehead that her hand is shaking.

His attention is finally diverted enough it seems for him to notice it too, and rather than commenting or ignoring, he lifts his own hand, settling his palm over her wrist, circling around, so that his thumb meets his middle finger.

She glances down at their joined limbs and feels her breath hitch high in her throat. She forces herself to swallow and continue wiping gently at the dried blood, all the while his hand still remaining on her wrist to stem them from shaking.

If he had noticed the coloured finger marks on her wrist and neck, he doesn't make a mention or any acknowledgement.

Eventually, she needs to clean the flannel and so he drops his hand from hers. When he doesn't put it back there, she tries desperately not to feel the sense of loss that has no right to accompany this situation but it hits her anyway, a smack between her eyes like a hazardous warning.

Once she's finished cleaning his face, she takes a proper look at his injuries. One of his cheekbones is flaming red with undertones of purple and green, his eye matching that with a smattering of yellow too.

His lip is split and she realises there's a caking of dried blood at the corner of his mouth and so she dips the flannel, squeezing the water out for a final time before tentatively sliding the material across his skin. His breath is hot against her hand; hot in the coldness of the basement where it fogs between them, her own mixing in too she supposes, until there's a culmination of them both, storm clouds gathering and threatening to spill over.

"You have a child." he says, eyes locking on hers and she keeps her hand there against his lip.

It is silent for way too long as she panics, tries to come up with a story and can't, until she swallows past the lump in her throat. "If you do anything to hurt -"

"- You think I'd do that?"

"I don't know you." she grits out, dropping her hand so some of the excess water from the flannel trickles down her wrist and drips onto her jeans. "People do horrible things all the time."

Like what they're doing with him.

"Well, if you're going to know one thing," he tells her, shifting slightly and her neck prickles, flames and burns as she edges back towards her gun, "it's that I wouldn't hurt a kid."

He makes no mention of never hurting her or Damon, and she knows he would given half a chance. Knows he should, too.

"If you know where your friend is," she says, changing the subject because the last thing she wants to do is give away details about her son. "You need to tell him."

"So, he can kill me faster?"

"So, he can get the money and let you go."

Derek makes a sound something between a laugh and a groan - his ribs reminding him, she figures, that he's injured. "He isn't going to let me go."

She doesn't know what to say to that; isn't sure how he's managed to figure it out. They have to be better, she thinks. Bring him food and let him use the bathroom, try and convince him there's something better than the worst possible end to all of this so he'll give up the information and his friend.

"I've known that since the first day I got here."

"He will. I'll figure something out."

He stares at her like he's contemplating, thinking whether to believe her.

 _He shouldn't._

"How are you going to help me, when you can't even help yourself? ... So, please don't do anything for me that will only get you and your child hurt." he says and stares and she pulls at her sleeve to hide away the evidence.

"You need the bathroom?"she asks, bringing out the cable wires in order to end this train of conversation.

Something in his eyes flickers, disappointment maybe, but as quickly as it appears it leaves again. His reply is staccato and clipped. "No."

"Okay." She loops the wire around his wrists, careful not to catch the sharp plastic against his broken skin. Next comes the rope - a perfectly executed figure of nine knot that binds him helplessly back to the radiator.

The atmosphere shifts and she can't look at him when she bends to collect the bowl and her gun. She turns to leave, limbs heavy and eyes burning with what she hopes aren't tears.

" _Addison_ ," he says softly as she's almost reached the top of the stairs. She tries desperately not to feel her heart jerk at the way he says her name but like everything lately, she fails in her attempt. Dipping her head, she turns it just a fraction towards him. "I don't blame you."

She says nothing more, just lets herself out of the basement and locks the door.

Damon's return is signalled when the front door flies open and ricochets back off the wall, leaving a handle-shaped dent as a token of gesture. It's close to three and the sudden intrusion makes her realise she's been dozing on the couch, about which panic sets in when she can't immediately locate her gun, and only ceases when she finds it beside her feet on the floor.

He's drunk.

She can already smell the alcohol radiating off of him and he's barely stepped into the living room. She figures there's no plan yet - he'd have been more purposeful and much more sober if there was one - and whether or not he's driven back seems irrelevant because she's so unbelievably tired that the only words she has the energy left to say are, "It's your turn to stay up. I'm going to bed."

He doesn't argue or apologise and he doesn't tell her he's come up with something to get them out of this situation either. All in all, pretty much what she's come to expect.

She checks on Milo before slipping into her own room and swapping her jeans and sweater for an old pair of leggings, hoodie and thick socks to keep out the cold. It's been too long, she thinks, since she's slept next to Damon so his heat can keep her warm. Too long also, since she's been held by him ( _or even held by anyone._ ) and she finds herself looking forward to the day Milo can offer his arms in a hug.

Her train of thought drifts to Derek as it so often does during the minutes she isn't down in the basement with him, and she finds herself wondering whether or not he holds anyone at night.

 _Sure, he's left behind his friend but does he have a girlfriend?_ _A family of his own?_

She's never thought about it before and she doesn't think she's seen a wedding ring on his left hand but that doesn't mean there isn't someone much like herself ( _except wholly and inherently better than she is._ ) waiting by the phone, listening to the news and out for any noise that might signal his key in the lock or his boots outside the door.

It almost doesn't matter though, she figures, because whether or not there is someone waiting for him at home, Derek isn't going to get the chance to see them again - at least, not if all of this plays out the way Damon intends it.

She curls up under the sheets, drawing her legs to her chest so she's conserving as much heat as possible. Her head rests on the pillow and again, her thoughts turn to Derek and the single blanket she had given him, his lack of pillow and no doubt aching neck, his red, broken skin so alike her own hands when the wet and searing cold attacks them if she's forgotten gloves. She should give him a pillow at least. A pillow and a hot drink of sorts - maybe a coffee, but then, _that would defeat the objective here, wouldn't it?_

This can wait until the morning, she tells herself, this display of guilt so obvious it might as well come shining with a neon sign.

But then, it's cold now. It's night right now.

Her eyes and limbs protest as she moves the sheets back and out of bed because trying to sleep is absolutely futile - her brain isn't about to switch off any time soon for her to get some rest.

There's a spare blanket in the cupboard that she drags out, the patchwork squares pulling up a kaleidoscope of images before her eyes.

It's one her grandmother knitted her.

There are four pillows on her bed, two of which are redundant for the remainder of the time he spends down in the basement and so she tucks one under her arm, the blanket draped over the top and she grabs the gun with her spare hand, stopping only to put her boots on.

Damon is, as she suspected he would be, pretty much comatose on the couch with the only indication he's alive being the loud snores. She thinks of Milo back upstairs but then Derek's words filters through - _if you're going to know one thing, it's that I wouldn't hurt a kid_.

Somehow, she believes him.

So, she unlocks the basement door, clicks on the light and waits the obligatory twenty seconds for the bulb to work properly before heading down, gun extended as always.

He's blinking in the sudden light at her when she edges closer, red-eyed and wracked with exhaustion and confusion.

"Brought you these," she tells him. "Maybe you can sleep."

He seems to stare at her for a while like he's unsure as to whether she means it, whether she's going to dangle these two luxury items in front of him and then take them away again. But then she finds his words, rough and dry in the cold. "Thank you."

She wishes he wouldn't thank her.

It makes it harder, going back upstairs and knowing he's grateful for the scraps of basic human decency she grants him when Damon seems dead set on giving him nothing. Instead of voicing this however, she simply nods and turns.

"Can you …" he trails off, indicating the pillow and blanket with a movement of his head. "I can't adjust them myself."

 _Well, of course._

Another oversight and she lets out a sigh she didn't know she was holding. She sets the gun down - pointing towards him of course - and picks up the pillow.

"Against the radiator?" Her voice sounds like it belongs to someone else.

"Yeah."

She leans forward to secure the pillow behind his head. There isn't much room and she makes the mistake of looking towards him when he leans his head back. Because suddenly, he's everywhere - his scent invading her nostrils, breath tickling her neck ( _and somehow not tickling it too, somehow something much more significant than just tickling since it travels everywhere on her body._ ), eyes burning into hers and she feels her own breathing falter - feels it catch and stick in her throat so she's forced to swallow hard several times.

"You want the blanket too?"

"Yes." His lips are so, so overwhelmingly close. Dangerously close. "Please."

Tearing her eyes away, she steps back towards the folded blanket with its patchwork squares and hidden secrets.

His arms catches her eye, folded and bound to the radiator, but they look strong. Full, she decides, like a shield. And she finds herself on that train of thought that she had upstairs earlier - the one where she wonders whether he holds anyone at night, wonders too, what it would feel like to be held by him.

"Addison?" he asks, and it breaks her from her reverie, makes her look back at his face, red.

"Sorry." she replies without thinking, only realising after she's said it that it's the first time she's apologised.

She bends to tuck the material round him and he offers the smallest hint of a smile. "Thank you."

She can't hear it again and simply nods, picks up the gun and heads back upstairs. By the time she lays back down in her bed, tears are streaming down her face and she does the only thing she can, and screams into the pillow.

* * *

 _ **Thanks so much for reading. Please let me know what you think. I would love to know what you guys think about this universe.**_

 _ **REVIEW!!**_

 _ **Oh, and if you guys can, please check out my other story, it's called** Find Your Voice_.


	4. Blue Eyes (4)

**_Addison and Derek's first meeting. Addek Angst (-ish). Set in a very very alternate universe. . . ._**

* * *

 **Blue Eyes**

(4)

* * *

Damon joins her at some point, her eyes open instantaneously and she looks at him, watching him watch her as he lingers and she shivers in the dark. He walks in, stumbling a little - a lot more than a little, actually - as he does and she sits up, pushing herself on her elbows and runs her hands over her arms.

She's cold.

He sits and leans towards her, she backs away when the smell of alcohol and cigarettes reek up her nostrils.

"Come on."

"No. We can't. I'm tired."

He doesn't listen though, only moves closer and puts his arms around her and for the first time in so long, it feels comforting - having him so close. "Damon. There's a stranger in our basement." she shakes her head and tries her body too but he runs his hands over the goosebumps on her skin and presses a kiss to her neck, then one to her jawline and she closes her eyes - didn't know until then that they were stinging with tears.

She shrieks, "Stop it. Stop it." when her breath hitches, she panics, angry, because she realises then that her life have become a series of manipulations and giving-ins.

"No!"

He kisses her roughly anyway.

She wants to scream but can't since she doesn't want Derek to hear her break apart.

"No, Damon, stop!" and she pushes him away, jumps out of bed, knocking her elbow on the nightstand and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. "You're disgusting!"

She can still taste the stale alcohol and cigarettes in her mouth.

"What?" he asks, slurring his words with a chuckle and she watches in fury as his body slumps forward and into a deep oblivion. She gives a good kick to his shin before storming out.

She draws a ragged breath and closes her eyes, hands clutching the doorknob for support. She's so stressed out, she can't even think what's the right thing to do here, let alone know how to continue on like this.

The three guys in her life now are tearing her apart and it's all her fault.

Damon, she shouldn't have allowed herself to be so gullible to his charm.

Derek, she shouldn't have drove him to the basement or care if Damon's going to kill him.

Milo, she shouldn't have brought him into _their_ world, because now she's only racked with guilt, guilt and more guilt.

She wants to escape, any escape, even sleep, but she can't even rest because at least one of them has to between Derek and Milo. And the thing is, as big as Damon is, she still trusts herself more to fight that battle - to be the one to protect their son. Eventually she finds the strength within to walk so she can check on Milo, then wait out the time until dawn downstairs.

Her baby boy is sound asleep, dressed in white that keeps his feet warm and lying underneath a blanket that stops him from wriggling too far into the side of his crib. She just watches him for a while, noting the way his tiny lips are parted and his eyelids fluttering, deep in the throes of a dream and ignorant to the man in his parents' basement.

She leaves his room after a while, her gun by her side as always, and trudges sleepily down the stairs and to the coffee machine.

She's barely two sips in, now searching the cupboard for the animal crackers to snack on when she hears the clang of the radiator in the basement. It seems almost like Derek can sense it's her upstairs and she wonders if it's a possibility that he can.

He speaks before she does. She's barely stepped onto the second step when he tells her he needs to use the bathroom.

"I'll get a tie." she tells him, turning on the spot to retrieve one of the plastic strands from the kitchen.

When she returns, he's watching her intently. Blue eyes on pale skin. "Are you okay?"

His question actually makes her laugh. "You shouldn't be asking me that."

"I am though."

"And you care? Really?"

"You're the one who's bringing me food and letting me go to the bathroom." he tells her softly, "And I heard you and ... upstairs."

So, she wasn't as hushed as she thought she was.

"Right."

She avoids his question and sets the gun down instead, focusing her attention on the rope. She knows his eyes are trained on her but she keeps herself rigid, willing her hands not to shake.

"You're cold." he states.

"I'm always cold." Her voice is flat, bored but she's appreciative.

"The second blanket is better." he tells her, "It's warm."

She only nods.

"The pillow too. I got some sleep."

She wants him to stop talking. It's too early ( _or too late, depending on whether dawn is closer than dusk at this point._ ). "Uh huh."

She cuts the cable wire but they both recognise the problem as soon as she hands him the bucket.

"I'll figure it out." he tells her, referencing to his injured leg and current position.

She turns forty-five degrees so he's in her peripheral vision but she doesn't actually have to see anything.

It becomes clear though, from the way he's sucking in his breath, that he's in pain. Using the radiator to brace himself against, he just about manages and she's more than grateful to hear his zipper.

"Tha -" he starts, signaling that he's done, but she cuts him off.

"- Don't. Don't thank me."

She feels sick with guilt. Wonders what her comeuppance will be, either later on in this life or in the next one. She can only pray that whatever it may be wouldn't affect Milo. He shouldn't have to live with all of the mistakes she's made. And the guilt of that makes her commit her next mistake.

"You want breakfast?"

"What are you offering?" Something shifts in his voice despite the struggle he's having to sit back down. "Eggs Florentine?"

And just that mention takes her back to the life she gave up. _Sunday brunches. Country Clubs. Benefit Dinners. Champagne_. _Boat sailing with The Captain._ _Heels. And Barneys._ She actually misses her snobbish family too and she's embarrassed again so she makes a joke out of her misery instead. One that falls flat and tastes sour.

"Sounds like something your girlfriend would make you eat at Sunday brunch with her parents."

Derek doesn't laugh, but seems to sense her discomfort and rather than closing their conversation, he lightens it.

She doesn't deserve it.

"Buttermilk pancakes, then. Or anything with bacon. I'd kill for a tray of crispy bacon right now." He seems to realise his own mistake and so this time she steps in.

"I think there's some frozen waffles in the freezer. I can probably make some rubbery scrambled eggs too if you're interested, but there's no bacon."

He smiles, actually fucking smiles at her and something in her chest tightens so much it feels like it's going to snap.

"Rubbery scrambled eggs and waffles sounds great."

"No." she says, reaching to bind his wrists back together with the cable wire. "It really doesn't."

 **XXX**

"Nothing for you?" he asks when she brings down him a plate and spoon.

"I'll eat later."

"It'll go cold."

"It's not like that would be the worst thing about it." she tries to joke as she cuts the brand new cable wire, unsure why she's even bothering to put in the effort to keep things light when the reality is anything but. "I'm not great at cooking." And an involuntary shiver passes through her, knocking her teeth together so they chatter loudly.

"Here." he says, holding out the blanket for her.

It makes her stop to look at him - really look at him. _Yes_. His eyes are puffy and rimmed with red but they're soft too. _Kind_. Concerned for her welfare even, not that he has any business in that department.

She shakes her head and gestures at the plate. "Eat before it gets cold."

He does and she watches him cut the waffles with the spoon, devouring them along with the eggs like she's made him a gourmet meal. She finds him more fascinating than she should - this six foot man with his strong arms and bruised face, the bluest cut-glass eyes that should watch her with utter hatred but never does.

"Why don't you tell your friend to stop using?" she tells him when he's done, the plate so clean it looks like he's licked it.

"You seem like you're ..." she shrugs. "Good." The words slip out before she can catch them, spilling into the basement with its freezing air and echoing space.

Something like humour flickers in Derek's eyes but leaves again before she can pin it down to decipher it fully. "Because I end up here?"

"Because your friend is buying drugs off of a man like …" she stops short of saying Damon's name.

"Like your boyfriend."

She nods.

"And I didn't stop him."

"Why didn't you?"

He seems to huff out a sigh but she finds herself curious about his answer and waits for the words to come. She probably shouldn't.

She does anyway.

"It's for my sister, I guess. She's ... well, she's got a problem. And my friend ... he's ... you know how sketchy and dangerous drug deals can go."

She does know.

"Aren't you mad at them?" she asks.

"For what?"

"For being here."

A sound part-way between a chuckle and another sigh escapes his lips. "I'm here because your boyfriend knocked me out." he says. "Not because of them."

A fair assessment, she figures, but her questions seem to have given him the idea that this conversation can be turned on its head. "Why are you with _him_?"

She's not stupid. She knows he's referring to Damon, even though he doesn't know his name. "You're loyal to him." he continues. "You don't use his name, don't argue with him, you let him sleep when you're exhausted -"

"- He's …" she starts, mainly just to cut him off so she doesn't have to hear it, her eyes cast down to the floor.

"He's what?"

 _The father of my child_ , she thinks. _He loves me. He was really nice and sweet and still can be at times. Because he wasn't like this at all before._

He got too comfortable in knowing she's never going to leave.

"He's what, _Addison_?"

She looks back up at the use of her name, all soft and careful but insistent somehow. She's just not sure what it is that he's waiting for.

"You done?" she asks instead, changing the subject and gesturing to the plate he's holding - the answer to her question blindingly obvious. He seems to understand that's all he's going to get and nods.

"It was good."

"No, it wasn't."

"Okay, it wasn't Bubby's, but it's better than my mom's."

The sudden mention of his mother shouldn't throw her off centre but it does, makes her wonder if he too had a cold as ice mother, where he was never sure whether she had loved him, where there was an equal chance of no one talking to one another or just blatantly bicker in the cold mansion. But then she decides no, he's too good for that, too happy and nice, well-mannered. Too clean and gentle - no hard edges left to defend himself with.

She only nods and gestures to the radiator.

"Can I have five minutes?" he asks. "To use my feet?"

"No."

"Addison, please -"

"- You think just because I brought you food and let you talk about your family that _this_ somehow makes us friends? Like I'm going to go easy on you?"

She notes the sag of his body against the cold metal and hates herself even more. But she can't be the weak link here, can't break Damon's trust.

"I don't think that." he tells her. "But I can hardly feel my legs and my back is killing me."

She wants to let him, she really does. But she just can't. "I'll come back down later." she decides aloud. "You can stand then."

He nods and she swallows. Hard.

Her hands shake as she's tying him back up but this time he doesn't still them with his own. Her skin seems to burn as he watches her but all the time she keeps her own gaze fixed on the rope until it's secure and she can pick up the empty plate.

Neither of them say anything more as she heads up the stairs and locks the door behind her.

* * *

She makes the decision to confront Damon about his lack of plan when she's giving Milo his first bottle of the day with the very last grain of his formula.

It's snowing again outside, thick, heavy flakes coating everything and anything so the whole street looks like it's been swamped by an unearthly white substance, but she figures she's going to have to bundle her baby boy up so they can make the trek to the grocery store.

She can't keep doing this, living this existence where she's torn between protecting the man downstairs and supporting the one she loves.

Derek's done nothing to deserve this, hasn't even put up a fight but Damon is ... the father of her child and she owes him this, she figures. Owes him blind faith because she doesn't have anything else to offer, and so she'll tell him they need to end this. Tell him to forget about being paid, because, really, he's never going to get paid.

She'll borrow money from Archer so Damon can pay whomever he owes the money to and that's that. End of their problem.

 _But what about Derek?_

She suppose they could hide the body in the woods. Burn it and destroy any evidence of their fingerprints. Wipe the basement clean. It all seems entirely plausible until the thought of charred flesh jars into her stomach and she vomits into the sink, Milo crying into her chest as she holds him against her so as not to cover him.

She knows she's never been a good person, not really, but she's never been this terrible of a human being before - doesn't even know if she can even be credited to call herself that when she's contemplating the best way to dispose of the innocent man in her basement.

She rinses her mouth with water, cups some into her hand so it's cold, and then wipes at her face before drying her skin with the sleeve of the plaid shirt she's wearing.

"I'm sorry." she whispers against Milo's head, shifting him so his crying subsides. Those words seem to be all she can say to him lately. "I'm so sorry."

Maybe they can move to another State.

Maybe they can just leave Derek down in the basement and the cops will find him or he'll make enough noise to alert the neighbours. They'll be long out of the city before that happens, leave New York and all of its awful truths behind. They can have a new life somewhere where nobody knows them.

Maybe she can even get a job in a grocery store or something. Change their names. Cut Damon's hair, grow and dye hers too, be decent citizens who pays taxes and get invited to neighbourhood barbecues and dinner parties.

It's a fantasy and she knows it.

The stairs creaks signalling Damon's presence and she waits for him to enter the kitchen. He does, pulling a hand through his hair and looking about as rough as she feels.

"We're out of formula." she tells him as he pours himself a mug of coffee.

He sighs but says nothing, until, "Did you cook?"

"I was hungry." she lies, more than glad that she'd had the sense to wash the dishes and pans as soon as she brought Derek's empty plate back up from the basement. She doesn't want to lie to Damon but she knows instinctively that telling him the extent of Derek's comfort is a bad move. "You want me to make you something?"

"Nah." he replies. "I'm going to head out."

"What about Derek?"

"What about him?"

"If we're both out, he might make enough noise to get someone's attention."

"Then don't go out." he says like it's the most obvious solution.

"But Milo needs formula."

He sighs again. "I'll stop by the store."

"Will you …" she pauses, realising she sounds like one of those nagging and paranoid wives. Maybe, she figures, she _is_ paranoid. "Will you be out long?"

The unvoiced question, along with that one, is; _where are you going?_ She knows he won't tell her, that it's something to do with his illegal 'business', and she has the smallest hint of hope that he's come up with a plan.

"No." he offers nothing more and she doesn't press.

"Okay."

Damon drinks his coffee and she hands him Milo so she can have a quick shower, the feel of the hot water against her skin soothing until she turns up the heat so it burns, so her skin would be so red by the time she steps out, that she looks like she's spent too long in the sun. The feeling she usually gets from being clean like this never comes, she still feels dirty. _Polluted_. Like all the bad things she's done have infected her body so her exterior matches her insides.

She towels off and takes a clean pair of jeans, a shirt and a sweater from the single set of drawers in her bedroom, pulls on a pair of Damon's socks too because those are warmer than hers, and then ties her hair into a ponytail so the damp strands don't soak her clothes.

The tangled bed sheets catch her eye and she reaches to strip them, but then decides against it, no real reason other than not now. Not now because she'd told Derek he could stretch his legs _later_ , said later, being when Damon leaves and he's leaving now.

The front door closes and the car engine starts and she takes Milo upstairs, setting him in his crib with a stuffed dog that barks when its paw is pressed. She presses it a couple times, smiling involuntarily when the baby does, and nuzzles his neck with the dog's soft material. Pressing a kiss to his head, she tells him she loves him then leaves the room, the door slightly ajar.

She stops by the kitchen for another cable wire, then notes the amount of coffee left in the jug and figures she could extend the courtesy to Derek, take him a mug of it as a silent apology for the thoughts she has had earlier. He deserves more than coffee though, she knows, and yet it's all she can offer ( _except, of course, his freedom - only that isn't an option, really._ )

Stuffing the cable wire and the small pair of scissors into her pocket, she plucks two mugs from the cupboard, pours the coffee into one and then adds a healthy spoonful of sugar. The hot liquid sloshes a little over the side and only then does she realise her unsteady hands. The other mug waits on the counter and in a snap decision, she adds coffee and sugar to that one too, sliding her gun into her pocket before heading down to the basement.

Derek looks somewhat surprised when he sees her, like he's forgotten about the fact that she had said he could stretch his legs when they talked earlier.

"Brought you coffee." she tells him as though it isn't obvious from the mugs she's carrying.

That expression in his eyes flickers again. "Thank you."

"You want to stretch first?"

"Please." he answers gratefully and she sets the coffee mugs down on the stairs, far enough away that if something goes terribly wrong here, he doesn't have the leverage to use the crockery as a weapon.

She thinks she believes that he wouldn't hurt Milo, but she's not sure he would hesitate to hurt her given half a chance, and so she knows she can't allow him even the smallest window of opportunity.

Her gun, she sets on the floor, barrel end towards him and she thinks there's the hint of a smile ghosting his lips as she leans towards him to untie the rope.

"You didn't point your gun," he says softly, "when you came down."

"It was by my side." she answers. Then adds, "ready - if I needed it."

"It was nice." he continues like he hasn't heard her. "Not to have that as the first thing I see."

It isn't nice, she thinks. And he shouldn't be grateful for it. She hates herself all over again but concentrates on the rope so that the mistiness in her eyes dissipates before she looks back at him.

"You've got five minutes." is all she says, contrasting his softness with her hard angles so she feels more comfortable, if only slightly.

"Tha -"

"- Don't." she cuts in, unable to hear the word. "Don't thank me. Stop thanking me."

He says nothing more, adhering to her request and she thinks she might actually be grateful about it, grateful to not hear him regard her as something good in all of this. Something not monstrous. She doesn't deserve it. Instead, as she picks the gun back up and he sucks in a long, low breath as he pushes himself up off of the radiator.

She hasn't made it easy for him, hasn't cut the cable wires off because having him up off of the floor and his hands free would be stupidly risky, even for her - even when she knows his ribs must be screaming at him. His leg too, in its awkwardly bent position.

Finally though, he manages to haul his body up into a standing position, the blanket pooling by his feet and the pillow she'd given him dropping back towards the floor too.

"I never asked," he starts, "about your kid."

This time, she sucks in a breath as she watches him lean against the wall for support.

"Boy or girl?"

She's not going to answer that, not going to give him even a breath of information that would put Milo in any more danger. And he seems to realise that when all she does is stare ahead.

"I never wanted another sister. I already had three." he starts, raising his bound hands to touch the swollen side of his face, trying ( _and failing._ ) to hide his wince at the pain. "Always thought girls were gross and stupid. I just wanted a younger brother so I wouldn't be the only boy in the house."

She stands stoically, torn between wanting to tell him to shut up because she isn't allowed to feel anything for him and asking him why.

In the end, she says neither.

"I didn't get a brother. Well, not ... really. I got a sister instead. It was scary as shit. But now, I think she's kind of cool." he laughs out, a one syllable burst of air that she doesn't return with even so much as a smile. "Still stupid, though."

Well, she doesn't have a daughter and Derek will never have any idea how glad she is about that. How grateful she was in the hospital to discover that the doctors had cut a baby boy out of her stomach - one who'll never fear growing up in the image of his mom. And selfishly, she knows too, that he'll never look at her the way she looked at her own mother, Bizzy.

He takes a slight unsteady step forward and she backs away a little, feeling the weight of the gun in her hand grow heavier. For the next couple of minutes or so, he shuffles along the back wall, never leaving it and she realises it's because of his injured leg - he can't stand on it, not properly, and the relief she feels at this silent revelation makes her awash with guilt yet again. She's relieved because the innocent man she's holding captive in her basement can't walk unaided.

She really is a shitty person.

Eventually, he returns to the floor with some effort, sliding his body back against the radiator and she takes from that that he's done stretching his legs.

"Coffee?" she asks and he nods.

"Yeah."

She snips off the cable wire first and then retrieves both mugs from the step, handing him one which he takes without a voiced thanks, though she doesn't miss the way his lips open in automatic response, then closes again when he realises his mistake just in time.

She shocks him - and herself - then, by sitting down beside him on the cold floor, her gun placed beside her far, far away from his hands. He looks at her new position but says nothing and they sip in silence for a good few minutes, the noiselessness only broken when he comments - or questions, she can't be sure - "black with sugar."

"I like it strong."

Silence again, but then, "You think," he starts, looking up at her with those intense blue irises of his. "If we'd met in another _universe_ , you'd have talked to me without being afraid to say what you're thinking?"

She isn't sure whether his words are meant to stab at her. To twist and sting in their directness. The coffee sits in her mouth, unswallowed, as she looks at him, struggling to breathe. Struggling too, to work out how he'd figured this out about her in the brief period of time they've spent together. He's watching her. Staring even, like she's the only thing that exists, and she feels suffocated by it.

Somehow though, she manages to swallow the coffee and dredge up the words from somewhere. "Doesn't matter." she replies. "You wouldn't have talked to me anyway."

"Say that I did," he says, shifting with a slight wince so he's angled that little more towards her. "In a bar."

She can't help but scoff. "We wouldn't have been in the same bar. Not unless you were lost."

"A coffee house."

Her eyes roll. "You think I've got the money to sit in Starbucks?"

"Okay, in the grocery store then." he challenges. "We're pushing our carts along and we meet by the candy. What would you say to me?"

He wants to play, she thinks, and she knows she's at the stop sign right now. She can make the smart choice and turn around, head back up those stairs and park this conversation or she can blaze past the sign, and ignore all of the screaming warning signs and the red flags.

Of course, she picks the latter. She've never been one to make things easy on herself.

"Depends."

"On?"

"On what you're reaching for."

"Why would that matter?"

"You want me to answer or not?"

"Fine." he says, with something dangerously close to a smile on his lips. "Candy corn."

"Is it Halloween?"

"No."

"Then, I'm going to call you out on it."

"I tell you I like the taste."

"Nobody likes the taste." she contradicts. "In fact, it doesn't even have a taste - it's just a horrible combination of sugar and corn syrup."

"We agree to disagree. And then I ask what you're buying."

She thinks for a moment. It's been a long time since she's bought anything from the aisle they'd be standing in but they're playing and so she says the name of the candy she would always beg the nanny if they were allowed to get when she was younger. Marisol always says yes, there wasn't really a need for all the begging. "Hershey's Kisses."

Derek's mouth does actually twitch into a smile at that and she feels her heart start to beat unceremoniously fast. He's close, she realises. Too close that she's warm. She isn't sure whether they started out further apart or whether they've always been seated like this close since she joined him on the floor, but either way she knows she needs to move.

Knows too, that she's made yet another mistake.

He seems to sense her unease and clears his throat, setting his empty mug on the floor and turning his head so he's looking in front of him rather than at her.

She stands up, grabbing the gun so she can point it accordingly.

"You like soup?" she asks.

"Yeah. Why?"

She shrugs like it's nothing. "Thought maybe I'd bring you some. For dinner." she adds.

He doesn't thank her but smiles and nods and they both know it's pretty much the same thing. This time however, she doesn't bite at him for it.

"Addison," he starts, using her name, like it's a loaded word, and she figures in some ways it is. Knowing the name of one of your kidnappers isn't how it's supposed to be. "How much longer?"

He doesn't have to elaborate.

 _How much longer have I got? How much longer until you kill me?_

"Until your friend pays up." she answers, slipping the cable wire into place quickly.

"What if he doesn't?"

She swallows hard, wonders if Archer will answer her call. "He will."

* * *

Lunch time passes.

The snow outside is still falling - albeit a little lighter than before - and Damon still hasn't return.

She makes herself a sandwich with some stale bread and chokes it down as Milo fusses on her lap, his missed bottle not going unnoticed.

"Daddy will be home soon." she tells him - more for herself possibly, than for the little boy who has no understanding of her words. "And he'll bring you enough formula that you can have ten bottles." Her voice is bright, stealing the very last of her optimism.

Damon doesn't return - not when the clock ticks past two and then an hour more, nor when she leaves half a dozen more voicemails on his phone, nor when Milo's screams threaten to deafen her and she's about a single deep breath away from screaming herself.

There are two options - she waits for him to come back, allowing her child to go hungry because she's hiding a hostage in her basement, ergo can't leave the house, or she risks leaving said hostage alone for half an hour while she runs through the snow to the store to get a can of formula.

She can't think yet again.

Her legs bounces uncontrollably, her teeth gnawing at the stumps of her fingernails while she tries to make a decision and in the end, she can't watch her child cry anymore.

Setting him down in his crib - at which he only cries harder - she gathers just enough resolve to march towards the basement, gun at the ready in her outstretched hand as the light flickers on, then off, on again and off, until it finally decides to do its job.

"You said you'd never hurt a kid." she states, aiming the gun at his head so violently that he visibly blanches. "You said that. You told me you wouldn't."

"I wouldn't." he answers quickly, eyes darting from hers to the gun and then back again.

"I need you to prove it." Christ, her voice is about two octaves higher than normal and wavering. "I need you to prove you wouldn't hurt my child, even though you're here in this basement and -"

"- Addison." he cuts in, voice unmeasurably soft, like it's catching hers somehow, like he's been saying her name his entire life. _Familiar_. "I promise I won't hurt him. _Her_?"

"Him." she whispers.

"Is everything al-"

"- Everything is fine." It's her turn to cut in and she spits out the words, waving the gun but acknowledging too that if she can still hear Milo's screams, Derek can too. He can hear how much of a terrible mother she is. "Don't make a sound. Please. Don't ... I've been good. I've brought you food and blankets and I, I …"

"I won't hurt your son, Addison." he almost whispers, and when she looks at him - really looks at him - she knows it's the truth.

She nods and says nothing more, just clicks off the light and locks the door behind her.

There's a lump in her throat making it so tight that she can't breathe. Milo's cries are incessant and if anything, they stamp the rubber seal of confirmation regarding her decision - she can't take him with her to the store when he's screaming like that. And so, taking one final look at the locked basement door, she pulls on her coat and heads out.

The streets are pretty much deserted, save for the odd few people clearly having gotten off the bus at the stop nearest their intersection.

The store, thankfully, is open and on the back wall, the candy catches her eye and there, towards the bottom shelf, is a stock of candy corn. She takes a pack and brings, along with the can of formula, to the cash register and pays with the money she's been saving up for when ( _if_ ) she escapes Damon with her son.

The journey back home is a race against time but she makes it, somehow, in under ten minutes with her lungs burning and her legs and feet and hands numb from the biting cold.

Milo's shrill cries are still audible and the basement door is still locked so she flies up the stairs to his nursery, her heart splintering when she lifts him from his crib and finds his clothes soaked with tears.

"Come on little man." she hushes, heading down to the kitchen to fill the kettle while he continues to cry. As soon as he has the bottle in his mouth though, he quietens, drinking every last drop she's made before his eyelids flutter close, giving way to the milk coma she finds utterly heartbreakingly beautiful.

He'll be sick later, she knows, drinking in such a hurry and falling asleep before being burped, but she can't bring herself to wake him now. Not when he's so content. And so she sits to catch her own breath, only just tuning in to the thumping in her chest and the bile rising in her throat, the sweat clinging to her back and the pins and needles in both her hands and feet.

There's still no sign of Damon.

Around fifteen minutes later, Milo does in fact vomit his milk back up and she bathes him in the sink, dresses him in clean clothes and hums something indistinguishable - a hybrid of two different songs maybe, she can't be sure - until he drifts back off, his tiny hand clutching at her finger.

She doesn't want to let him go. She never wants to let him go, she decides.

She does though. She settles him in his crib because Derek kept his promise and she had pointed a gun at him ( _again_ ) and despite her thoughts earlier - those god awful thoughts of charred flesh and a bleached basement - she really, really doesn't want him to die. And so she tucks the Glock into her side, unlocks the door and takes a deep breath as the light clicks on.

He's watching her warily and she wonders if the best thing for them all would be to turn the gun on herself.

"Hey." he says softly.

She's undeserving of that tone.

"Hey." She moves closer, eyeing the rope and the cable wire, then finally, him.

"I thought that maybe ... earlier... you were really going to shoot me."

"I …" her words catches in her throat. "I don't want to do that." Somehow, when they finally tumble free, the words don't seem like an admission. Somehow, in his eyes, it seems like he already knew that anyway.

Untying him from the rope, she leaves the plastic around his wrists and hands him the packet from her pocket.

"As a thank you." she tells him as his eyes questions her on the presentation of the candy.

Derek nods but says nothing again, clearly staying clear of verbalising how fucked up all of this is as she takes a seat beside him. This time, their arms brushes and she shares the blanket.

* * *

 ** _Thanks for reading guys. I'm still working on Karma, this was just easier to update. :)_**

 ** _Do you think Derek will get out of there alive?_** ** _Leave a review._**


	5. Blue Eyes (5)

**_Addison and Derek's first meeting. Addek Angst (-ish). Set in a very very alternate universe. . . ._**

* * *

 **Blue Eyes**

 _(5)_

* * *

Addison's body jerks violently and she only notices then, as she's opening her eyes, that she'd fallen asleep.

 _Shit!_

Her heart leaps into her throat when she realises that the basement door is open too and she can hear a series of dull thumps coming from the bottom of the stairs.

 _Shit!_

In her haste to reach Milo, she forgets the gun but finds him sound asleep in his crib and so she looks out of the window. The car is back - although it looks like it's been abandoned haphazardly - signalling Damon's return.

Something inside of her chest twists and right now, she has zero intentions of deciphering what that is.

Another sickening thud sounds out loud and she runs downstairs, grabbing her gun from beside the couch.

Bile rises in her throat as she descends the basement stairs and sees Damon attacking the man who, only the last time she was awake, had held her more gently with his hands bound together than she'd ever been held before.

 **XXX**

 _"You want some?" Derek asks, managing to make a tear in the plastic packaging even with the cable tie still in place._

 _Briefly, she wonders if she hasn't tightened it enough._

 _She makes no attempt to check - or pull the strip of plastic tighter._

 _"I'll pass."_

 _"Come on." he tries, nudging her a little and it feels unequivocally like a line has been crossed. She's almost certain there's no going back now._

 _She rolls her eyes. "Fine."_

 _Holding out her hand, he tips the packet so around eight pieces of candy lands on her palm._

 _He's watching her, she knows, like she's some strange cell on a dish that hasn't been identified yet. Self-conscious, she pops one of the pieces onto her tongue and feels, rather than sees, him smile beside her._

 _He shouldn't be smiling about this._

 _He shouldn't be smiling about anything at all._

 _"It's good, right?" he says, shoving at least four pieces into his mouth at once._

 _"It really just tastes like sugar." she decides, but adds another piece to her mouth, regardless._

 _"You say that like it's a bad thing."_

 _She shrugs and the action makes their arms brush with electricity. Her toes curl inside of her boots and she wants to do it again._

 _She doesn't._

 _Instead, she finds some words from somewhere inside of her, strings them together and manages to form a question._

 _"Do you eat the Halloween candy you buy before the trick-or-treaters come?"_

 _Bizzy never allowed them to eat the candies. Even the ones they get from their trick-or-treating._

'A moment on the lips forever on the hips' - _her mother would always taunt them._

 _There's a grin crossing his lips and all she thinks is that she doesn't deserve this - this moment of pleasantness in such a horrendous situation._

 _Still, Derek answers. "So much of it that I always have to buy it twice."_

 _"You get dressed up?"_

 _He shrugs and their arms brush again._

 _She wants him to do it again._

 _This time though, she thinks he shifts a little closer so that their bodies are resting against each others from their shoulders to their elbows._

 _A warmth spreads from where he's touching her down to her fingers and she feels them twitch a little. "Eh, sometimes. I went as my boss this year. It didn't go down so well."_

 _Despite everything, she finds herself smiling. "I've never been to a Halloween party."_

 _It feels like a more significant admission than it should, but Derek doesn't dwell on it and she feels a sense of gratitude towards him._

 _"What would your costume be?" he asks, "If you'd go to one next year."_

 _Unsurprisingly, that seems like the last thing she'll be doing next year, and she wants to tell him that. She don't think there'll even be a next year for her. It's more probable that she'll be locked up for all of this. However for the sake of this precariously constructed fantasy world that they're engaging in, she thinks of her answer._

 _"Miss Honey from Matilda."_

 _Derek's lips quirk. "Not the answer I would've predicted."_

 _"She seemed like such a good person." she sighs, and doesn't realise she's said the next part out loud until she feels Derek's bound hands rest over hers. "The complete opposite of me."_

 _"You're not a bad person, Addison."_

 _She swallows and blinks back the tears threatening her vision._ She is _. She's worse than bad. She's monstrous. Evil._

 _"I am." she whispers, "And I'm sorry ... for everything ... I didn't ..."_

 _She feels his body shift, accompanied by a grunt of discomfort but then, he asks, "Do you trust me not to hurt you?"_

 _She knows she shouldn't._

 _Turning to look at him though, his blue eyes are so clear and so honest that the word slips out, unchallenged. "Yes."_

 _He lifts his arms and stretches his elbows apart to form an oval which slips over her so that she's in the centre. Then, Derek draws them back inwards so they close around her and she's resting against him. Being held by him._

 _His breath feels warm and comforting against her ear and she sniffs as a tear forges a damp path down her cheek._

 **XXX**

Damon's alternating between hitting Derek, tugging at his own hair, and scratching at his skin as though he has an uncontrollable itch.

She says his name - loudly and in broken syllables - and only when he looks up at her does she realise what this is all about; he's using again.

It's been years since she's seen him like this - wild and impulsively lunging with such black eyes; high ( _or, coming down from one_ ) off of heroin - and she knows then and there that she really has to get out of this world.

She has Milo to protect now.

"Stop it!" she shouts, tugging at his leather jacket, recoiling from the smell of him. He hasn't showered in days and she knows from the stains on the front of his sweater that he's vomited without significant effort of a clean up.

"Hey!" Her voice is suddenly loud and clear and he does stop. In fact, he's gawking at her with evil eyes that for a moment, her whole world stops spinning.

She's unsure as to whether he's about to do the same to her as he did to Derek. So, she takes a step back, Derek must have sense it too because he tries as much as possible to push himself forward, to somehow defend her. But then, Damon's his limbs go lax and she lets out a quiet breath.

"Go take a shower." she whispers, "Go to bed. I've got this."

It's a lie.

She doesn't have anything remotely resembling the unvoiced ' _under control_ '. But what she does have is a three-month-old with shitty parents, a boyfriend she's only just realising has been using probably the whole time she thought he was clean, and an innocent man tied to a radiator in her basement.

Damon heads up the stairs without a word and she can barely bring her eyes to look at Derek. He's breathing, which is probably the only good in all of this, his laboured inhales clogged by blood and a swollen face.

"I'm not going to let him kill you." she says, decision made. Her voice is barely audible but she knows he's heard her.

This time, she leaves the light on when she heads back up to the house. She closes the door but doesn't lock it, ascending the stairs towards Milo's room.

Miraculously, he's asleep and so she carefully bundles him into a snowsuit, sets a hat over his head and then secures the fluffy hood with a scarf. She can't leave him up here with Damon and it's too cold to let him sleep in the car without the engine running so the only option is to keep him with her.

Derek's not going to hurt him.

She listens while Damon forgoes the shower in favour of heading straight to bed, waits a few minutes in case he's unable to sleep, but hears nothing. Milo's little dark eyes stay closed as she fills a bowl with warm water in the bathroom. There isn't a spare flannel anywhere and so she figures a teatowel will have to do.

Navigating her way back downstairs with the bowl of water in one hand and a sleeping baby in the other proves a difficult challenge, some of the water sloshing over the sides so her coat gets wet, but she makes it down the narrow basement stairs and finds Derek watching her through swollen black eyes.

"He's sleeping." she tells him in reference to Damon. "I …" Looking at Milo, she sniffs, voice cracking. "I'm going to keep him with me. Please just don't -"

"I won't." Derek manages to grit out.

She nods. Thank you seems too hard a word to say.

She uses the pillow behind Derek and the blankets dumped haphazardly away from his feet to form a bed of sorts, on which she sets Milo. His eyelashes flutter briefly, but he stays blissfully unaware and so she unties the rope from around Derek's wrists before soaking the towel in the warm water.

He flinches a little when she guides the material across his skin and so she raises her hand in a no-doubt-failed-bid to alleviate the pain as much as possible.

He watches her face the entire time, eyes taking in the thin curve of her lips; the mole she has on the side of her nose that she hates; the dark circles she knows have been a permanent feature under her eyes, probably for the last few years.

Her knees on the floor, she bends closer to him, holding the side of his head as gently as she can in her left hand so she can wipe the blood away with the cloth in her right.

"I should've brought some ice." she says aloud - not really for his benefit but he still manages to find it within him to reply.

"There must be plenty of snow outside."

She nods. He continues, somehow. "But your hands feel better."

"I told you I won't let him kill you." she tells him for the second time tonight. "So, you don't have to be nice."

There's a movement in his eyes that she can't attach an emotion to. It's something akin to hurt but it's not quite that. He doesn't say anything else.

Milo continues to sleep while she soaks the towel again, squeezing it out before carefully wiping at the blood around Derek's nose and lips. They look soft, she decides, like they'd be comfortable to rest her own on.

The thought catches her off guard and she gasps, flaming from her neck upwards despite the cold of the basement.

"What?" His voice is gruff but not sharp. There's a dangerous lilt to it, though, that she can't place.

"Nothing."

"Addison …"

He leans closer, so close that his breath is hot on her own lips and she can taste the sweetness of the candy corn. Can make out the metallic smell of his blood too.

"I -"

He closes the gap then. Leans forward just a little so there's barely a breath of air between them and dusts his lips over hers.

She doesn't move. She can't move.

There's some pressure - his lips pressing further against hers - and her eyelids sweep downward and her heart feels like it's stuttering out of rhythm.

She pulls back and he's watching her like she's a feral animal.

"Why did you do that?"

"I …" he winces and tries to shift his body. "I wanted to see if you felt it too."

Her lips feel like they've been stung. It seems horrendously inappropriate that she likes it.

"Leave him, Addison."

"I …" _I can't._

His hands - still bound by the cable wire - are lifting her chin. "Leave him. Give your child a chance."

"What about you?" she whispers.

"We both know he's going to kill me." he grits out. "And you can't stop him."

"I can." she protests.

"You can't." he repeats, closing his eyes. "And that's okay."

"No. No. It's not okay." she shouts.

There's an expression on his face that halts the follow-up question of - _why_ \- and she purses her lips closed. Her cheeks feels hot all of a sudden, and she realises she's crying.

"I was the one who drove you here, you know! I brought you here!"

She needs him to hate her, so it'll make things easier.

Derek only seems to stare at her. He doesn't look surprised.

"I was the one who drove you here!" she tells him again, like he might've misunderstood her the first time. "I could've driven to the police station or refused or done anything to keep you from being stuck in this fucking basement, but I didn't.

She thinks he knows what she trying to do.

He's still silent and her tears are hot and angry now.

"I thought about killing you. Even picked out a place to hide your body."

He doesn't flinch.

"I was going to shoot you." she's nodding, she realises, like maybe it's herself she's trying to convince. "Drag you out to the woods and burn your body to hide the evidence."

"What do you want me to say?" he finally asks.

"That you hate me. That you want me to suffer."

"I don't."

She tosses the towel onto the floor and water sprays upwards. She wipes at her tears and picks up Milo who's starting to stir with the raised noise.

The rope stays on the floor.

"You should."

 **XXX**

She's crying harder by the time she reaches the living room, skin burning from the hot, wet salt and the feel of Derek's body against hers.

Milo is screwing up his face too, getting ready to announce his own discomfort and all she can do is cry harder.

 _Oh, she's so exhausted._

They're all driving her insane.

At one point, not too long ago, this would have been the time where she would give in to the impulses in her fingers and just give up.

It's easier to.

But she has Milo now. She's a mother now. She can't do anything she used to do anymore.

And so she clenches her fingers towards her palm, sucks in a shaky breath and heads up to his nursery for a diaper.

She changes him almost robotically, redressing him in the snowsuit from earlier because she just needs to get out, wherever out might be.

Milo settles quickly and looks at her with such innocence that she finds herself looking away, picking him up and holding him to her chest so he can't yet recognise what a bad hand he's been dealt in life.

On the way back downstairs, she pushes open the door of her and Damon's bedroom just a fraction, so she can determine whether or not he's asleep, and yeah, Addison knows she's seen a number of things in her twenty-three years, but nothing could have prepared her for the scene in front of her.

She gasps in a breath which sounds more like a strangled sob as she pushes the door all the way open.

"Damon!" she screams, her tone sending the baby in her arms into an eruption of screams, just like hers.

Something kicks in - instinct, maybe - and she rushes Milo to his crib despite his escalating cries.

She can't have him see his dad like ... that.

Maybe she expects the scene to have changed when she returns to the bedroom but it hasn't - it's still the same view of her boyfriend, needle in his arm and eyes open, slumped against the wall unmoving.

She knows he's dead.

* * *

 ** _Thanks for reading guys._**

 ** _Do you think all will be well for Addek now that Damon's dead?_**

 ** _What do you think?_**

 _If you haven't already read the latest of_ _Find Your Voice_ _, please check it out. ;)_


	6. Blue Eyes (6)

**_Addison and Derek's first meeting. Addek Angst (-ish). Set in a very very alternate universe. . . ._**

* * *

 **Blue Eyes**

 _(6)_

* * *

Addison has no idea how long she has been there in that bedroom, though, she knows it's long by the pins and needles sensation in her feet. That being said, she could just be numb from what she can't help but continue to stare at.

Damon's lifeless body.

 _Damon's dead_.

Damon cannot be dead.

Something must have filtered through her brain at some point in time because she hears a noise - her name to be exact - strangled out from a set of lungs she recognises only not to be hers or Damon's.

Derek, she realises. _Derek_.

Unsure of what else to do, she heads numbly down the stairs to find him half dragging himself from the basement to the hallway.

Unconsciously, she reaches for her gun but it isn't there - left somewhere else she suddenly realises she can't recall.

He holds his hands up, a realisation of what she must suspect. "I tried …" he croaks out in a cough, "You were screaming."

"It's Damon." she manages somehow to admit, shuddering and feeling a strange mix of heaviness and faintness, a loss.

 _He's gone._

She tells him what she saw, what she _knows_.

"Get your son." he says, acknowledging the baby's cries from upstairs. "I won't ... I really _can't_."

She understands. He's way too injured to get anywhere, let alone run into the plowing snow.

 _Okay._

She has to pass the bedroom on her way to her son, she can't stand seeing Damon like that - dead, eyes wide and bulging like a nightmare and she suppose it is - so she pulls the door close without looking inside. But it doesn't really matter because she doesn't even have to close her eyes, the image - he is imprinted in her brain anyway.

 _Forever_.

The needle is still in his arm.

When she reaches Milo, she decides this will be the last time he cries because of something like this, because of the shitty parents he unfortunately has. She's not going to subject him to any more of this kind of life, and if that means having someone so much better than her take care of him, then so be it. She'll give him a chance, she decides, to not be held back by her or the first hand he was dealt.

"You're gonna have the best life." she whispers, stroking the dark curls on his head. "I promise."

She's been making false promises all her life, like that time she promised The Captain she'll be a surgeon just like him or when she promised Bizzy she'll practice the piano two hours everyday just so she could get her a Bösendorfer since Senna Sinclair has got one in her living room, this time, though, she intends to keep this promise.

Derek is still in the hallway when she returns downstairs, watching her intensely. She stands there, Milo seated at her hip and leaning against her chest, warm and smelling of that delicious baby smell she loves so much.

"So, what are you going to do?"

"Wait for the cops to come and arrest me."

She watches as his brows crinkle in the middle and he's looking at her, "You're not going to run?" Derek's voice is so rough, she wonders how he's even managing to speak.

 _Don't you come crawling back here when your ridiculous phase comes to an end._

 _Don't tell me you've decided you've had enough of that shoe box you call a home._

 _And as for that little beast inside, I hope you're not expecting anything from your father and I, dear._

"Where would I go? I have no one to run to. And ..." she looks at Milo, resting her lips on his crown, "He deserves better than what I've given him."

" _Addison_ …"

"I promised myself and him in the delivery room that there'll never be a day that he feels neglected, that no one's ever going to hurt him ..." she sniffs, forcing back the tears and the lump in her throat. "And it's all I've been doing since he was born."

"You're not …" he tries, groaning as he tries to move to his other side but it evident still that his ribs and leg protest at the exertion. "You got a piece of paper and a pen?"

She nods dumbly.

"Write this down."

He grunts out an address in Montauk and she just about manages to scrawl it across the back of a gas bill envelope with a shaky hand. "You'll be safe there."

"What is it?"

"My cabin." he answers, wincing as he clutches his ribs. "Well, my family's, actually. It's …" another wince escapes, she can't do anything to help. "By the lake. It's quiet and there's running water." A third wince and she cringes along. "And wood for the fire. Don't worry, it's empty. My family doesn't go there at this time of the year."

She stares at him - at the bruises littering his skin and his red eyes and his soft lips that had kissed hers earlier. "Why -"

"- Because you can't stay here. And your child need his mom."

"I hurt you." she whispers.

"You didn't."

"But I helped _him_ hurt you."

Derek looks at her again and she feels her heart stutter, tattering to a halt for a couple seconds there while her breath catches and then it's hammering in such a quick succession that she's not entirely sure she's not having a heart attack.

"Addison." he's saying, and she feels light-headed and wobbly. Everything is spinning and there's stars everywhere. "Hey _, Addison_ , take a breath. Sit down."

She thinks she manages to comply, holding Milo as tightly as possible, blinking the black spots in her vision away until she can see properly again.

The man in front of her looks way more concerned than he should.

"You okay?"

He shouldn't be asking her that either.

"You need to go to the hospital." is what she answers.

"Yeah."

She nods and then feels his hand on her leg, just above the top of her boot.

"Get everything you need. You can drop me off on your way."

She looks at Milo and then at Derek, then back at Milo again. "Okay."

She throws enough of her son's clothes to last a few days into a duffle bag, tops it with blankets and his favourite stuffed animal and the few diapers she has left. For herself, she grabs her toothbrush then takes a final glance around the top floor of the house, her gaze lingering on the bedroom door which remains shut. _Damon's dead._ She decides against getting herself a change of clothes for obvious reasons and heads back downstairs with Milo on her hip.

Derek's face is screwed up on her return, the evidence of his pain clearly written into his eyes and clenched fists.

"Ready?" he asks.

"I need his formula." she tells him, heading to the cabinet to grab the small tin of powder. It fits into the duffle bag she's holding. It's only when she looks back at Derek that she feels the tears sting her eyes again. She doesn't let them fall, because it's not fair for her to be the one breaking, giving in when the guy slumped against her living room wall ( _the same one who's been reduced to sleeping against a radiator, bound and beaten and to the point of almost freezing to death._ ) had clawed his way up the basement stairs just to make sure she was okay.

"What are you going to tell them?" she chokes out. "At the hospital."

"Nothing."

"They'll be suspicious."

He shrugs and then very obviously regrets it. "You have my word."

His eyes are honest when he tells her that and she nods briefly. Again, a _thank you_ is too wholly inappropriate.

"You, uh ... you need to get rid of the rope and the ties from the basement."

"Okay." she looks at Milo and then at Derek, who seems to have sense her thoughts.

"I won't hurt him, Addison." he says as he extends his arms her way.

Nodding, she swallows. "Okay."

Setting him against Derek, who offers a gentle ' _hey bud,_ ' as he rests a hand on the baby's back, she takes a look at the two of them before heading down to the basement.

"The pillows and blankets too?"

He nods. "Yeah."

She does as he says, finding her son smiling at the man she'd held hostage in her basement when she returns, and feels a stab of something in her chest. It makes a sob rise in her throat but she stifles it back down before it can amount to anything audible.

The cable wires goes in the trash, the rope looped and stuffed in the cupboard with Damon's tools and she then folds the blankets. "I got them from upstairs."

"Make it look like you left first. When the cops come, they'll assume that's the reason for his O.D."

Milo gurgles and Derek smiles and Addison hates herself for suddenly imagining a scenario where the dynamics of this are so so vastly different, which is so so enormously wrong.

She forces herself to go upstairs before she can conjure up any more desirable images.

 **XXX**

The last time she drove the car was when she was driving Derek to the basement on that fateful night. This time, he's in the front passenger seat and Milo is strapped into his carseat in the back, and it's almost normal - or at least, it _appears_ almost normal.

Getting Derek into the car had been a struggle, though not more difficult than it had been getting him out the first time. She, now, can still feel the weight of him against her shoulder, can still feel his warm breath heaving against her neck, can still smell that faint cinnamon/mint mix which should've been overpowered by blood and sweat, except it hasn't.

"The key is under the stone." he tells her, breaking the silence they've been driving in. "The one to the right on the porch."

"Okay."

"You know how to light a fire? It will be colder there, not going to lie."

"Yes."

It's a lie. Hers is.

She's not entirely sure she can remember the way the Cub Scout recruiter showed them back in school, but she'll give it a try.

"There'll be some soup cans in the kitchen, for when you get hungry." he adds. "Can't promise it'll taste great, though."

"It'll be fine." she says, then feels insanely rude because actually, it's _way_ more than fine. Certainly way more than she deserves.

She doesn't tell him this.

"If you need anything else, you know, for _him_ …"

"Milo." she tells him. "His name is Milo."

Derek smiles. "It's a good name."

She says nothing more, just checks her son in the rearview mirror.

"If you need anything else, there's a grocery store in town. Don't worry about money, just give them my name, okay? Derek Shepherd."

Her cheeks burns in shame. _Derek_ _Shepherd_. "I want you to hate me." she whispers.

He nods like he already knew this. And he doesn't voice the fact that he doesn't hate her. She's grateful; it's taking everything she has not to scream.

He instructs her to pull over half a block away from the hospital with the reason that there are no security cameras there, "Just in case."

Reluctantly, she slows to a stop and turns to look at him. Before she can ask him how he's going to manage, he simply says, "I'll be fine." He follows those words with a press of his lips to her forehead and she decides she never wants to open her eyes. Staying like this forever would be fine, given the circumstances.

Eventually though, Derek pulls back and reaches for the door handle. She wants to tell him how grateful she is; how insanely _good_ he is; how she hopes this last week won't ruin him or his future.

She says nothing and neither does he.

 **XXX**

It's pitch black when she rolls to a stop in the yard of what Derek had called a 'cabin', which in reality is a wood-clad house seated beside a frozen lake. The ground is blanketed in snow - so much of it that she's forced to park the car slightly on the road because it's the only clearing big enough.

She forgot how much worse the weather is up here. It's been years since she's been upstate, the last time being a sailing tournament with The Captain and Archer.

Milo's asleep when she plucks him from the carseat, his breaths quick and even. She leaves the bag in the trunk for the time being, tripping slightly through the snow to the door.

The overhang of the porch is enough that the stone hiding the key ( _not that it's been hiding well._ ) isn't completely covered, and she plucks it from its resting place with freezing hands.

The cabin smells like wood and something that reminds her of old blankets - the cosy kind that are somehow comforting despite garish patchwork. It is, she decides in her subconscious, quintessentially _Derek_ , that comfort element. He was right though, it's cold - maybe even colder than cold, and she needs to get the fire going despite the time.

There's a basket of logs and old newspapers beside the fireplace and she assumes there'll be matches somewhere around this house if she looks hard enough. She finds them in a kitchen cabinet along with a torch and some batteries, and sets Milo against some of the couch cushions so she can make a start on lighting the fire.

It doesn't take too long before the flames are licking their way along the logs and she can feel the tentative heat start to filter out into the room.

She's exhausted but the bags are still in the car and she hasn't even figured out where she's going to set Milo so he can sleep properly. She doubts Derek would just have a spare crib lying around and decides that maybe, for tonight at least, he can stay where he is, comfortable against the cushions with the fire's warmth and the safety that comes from not living in the south side of Manhattan.

Addison doesn't sleep. Instead, she adds logs after logs to the fire each time the last one turns close to ashes and watches the night give way to day which brings no sun, only a snowstorm so heavy that by the time it lets up enough for her to retrieve the bags from the car, every one of her footprints from earlier is covered over again.

Around lunch time, the phone rings.

She's in the middle of feeding Milo and it makes her freeze. She doesn't answer it, just waits for the ringing to stop and then continues angling the bottle of formula so it flows freely into Milo's mouth. It rings again and her heart hammers in her chest.

Again, she lets it ring off, trying to concentrate on the way the white liquid bubbles up a little at the tip of the bottle but the harsh chirp of the phone sounds for the third time and so timidly, she picks it up, saying nothing at first.

"Addison?"

It's Derek's voice and she has to use the wall to prop herself up. "Derek?" She doesn't expect to sound so high-pitched or out-of-breath or relieved.

"Are you okay?" he's finally gotten out of that basement and he's calling to see if _she's_ okay.

 _Goodness_!

"I saw there was a huge snowstorm up there. Wasn't sure if you'd made it."

She can't say anything because the lump in her throat is suffocating.

"Addison?"

"Yeah." she sniffs. "We made it. Are you ... how was the ..." she can't finish.

"A few cracked ribs." he says, sensing what she was trying to ask. "And my leg's …. going to be okay."

She exhales her sigh of relief that - physically at least - he's going to be fine.

"I didn't tell them anything." he adds. "If you were wondering."

"I wouldn't blame you if you did. You _should_."

He doesn't say anything in reply and the line between them is silent for a few seconds again. "Addison?"

"Yes?"

"Don't do anything ... don't ..."

She thinks she knows what he's trying to say. It makes her chest ache. "I won't."

She doesn't deserve the easy way out anyway, she knows.

Derek gives her his number ' _in case you need anything, or ... whatever_ '. She tells him again that he's too good, but finds herself promising that she'll call if she _does_ need anything.

She wants to cry after he hangs up. She actually _misses_ him. She hopes he doesn't feel the same way.

 **XXX**

A week passes.

She visits the grocery store for diapers and formula and finds that the following day is Christmas Eve. She hadn't even realised. True to Derek's word, the lady behind the counter smiles when she mentions his name - Derek Shepherd - following it with, "Ah yes, he told me a _friend_ of his was staying over."

She thinks _friend_ might be the least accurate word to describe who she is, but Addison forces a smile back with a ' _thanks_ ', and then heads back along the road to the cabin.

The air seems cleaner in Montauk than it was in the city, fresher, and she finds herself taking deep lungfuls as she carts Milo back in his snowsuit and mittens, his dark eyes bright with wonder at the blue of the sky and the white of the surroundings.

It's a change of scenery of dull and misery.

She eats half a can of tomato soup for lunch, ignoring the slight feeling of hunger even once she's done. Having Derek help her out with stuff for Milo is one thing but she's not about to let him help her out anymore than he already has. There are enough cans to last her the next week if she limits herself to one per day.

It's while she's bathing Milo later that evening that she hears a noise like a key in a lock. Her ears feel like they're burning and her heart feels like it's in her mouth, but then all of it ceases when she hears the next sound.

" _Addison_?"

She plucks Milo from the bath despite his protests, which comes in the form of a whine rather than a cry, and soon temper off when she wraps him in a towel and hands him the washcloth he appears to have taken to liking over the past week.

She knows the voice belongs to Derek, and she thinks she's ready to see him; thinks she'll be fine, but when she rounds the corner and finds him standing beside the fire, leg strapped in a plastic boot and several bags surrounding his feet, she realises she's far from it.

 _That's_ when she cries.

* * *

 ** _Thank you for reading! What do you think?_**

 _ **Please check out** Find Your Voice **if you haven't.**_


	7. Blue Eyes (7)

**_Addison and Derek's first meeting. Addek Angst (-ish). Set in a very very alternate universe. . . ._**

* * *

 **Blue Eyes**

 _(7)_

* * *

 _...Previously on Blue Eyes_

 _"Addison?"_

 _She knows the voice belongs to Derek, and she thinks she's ready to see him; thinks she'll be fine, but when she rounds the corner and finds him standing beside the fire, leg strapped in a plastic boot and several bags surrounding his feet, she realises she's far from it._

 _That's when she cries._

* * *

And she hates herself for it - hates herself far more than she already does.

Promises are made just to be broken, like the ones she made to her parents, that she'd focus on her studies, not sneak into college parties, that she'd get good grades instead of chasing after every boy that told her that she was pretty - and whoever said that promises are meant to be kept in lock and key and hidden in a treasure chest doesn't know what they're talking about.

She always - _almost always, exclusively_ \- breaks every promise she made. Albeit the ones to her parents or to Milo or to Derek, and even the ones made to herself - that she wouldn't dare start cry, wouldn't dare make this all about her but that's exactly what she's doing. Bizzy was right, she's always been an attention whore.

Because that's when she begins to cry. Hot and raspy, tears trekking down her face in parallel lines, teardrop after teardrop. She's afraid she can't stop.

"Addison, hey, hey," Derek hushes, moving closer to hold her and drawing her against his chest despite the discomfort she knows he must be in. "It's okay. It's okay," he repeats, his lips resting against her forehead, much like they had the last time she saw him, and Addison breathes him in greedily, like if she doesn't get enough he might disappear.

He has no idea as to why she's crying, what's gotten into her right now, but the only thing he knows for certain is that he'd do anything to shoo her problems away, to see her smile again, like she did in that awful basement of hers as they shared stories over candy corn.

Milo chooses that moment to reaffirm his presence, making a high-pitched shriek that's neither a cry or a sign of distress, and Addison feels the vibration of Derek's chuckle rumble through her.

"Hey _bud_ ," he says, running a hand softly through the mass of dark, wet curls on the baby's head. She knows Damon loved Milo, but she's not sure she's ever seen anyone be so gentle with him. She pulls back from Derek reluctantly, trying her best to wipe her eyes on the shoulder of her sweater _(and failing, as usual)_.

Derek helps her instead, cupping her cheeks and gently swiping tears with the pad of his thumbs. She feels the warmth of them seep into her skin deliciously and instantly, she releases a breath she hadn't realised she had been holding.

She looks up to him then, their eyes meeting and they stand for a moment without speaking, Addison taking in his clean jeans and the plaid shirt poking out from his open jacket. His eyes are still that same intense blue they were when she had last seen him, and even though they're a little rimmed with red, the bruises on his face have faded quite significantly already. There's more scruff on his jaw than when she last saw him too, but he looks good, she decides. _Handsome_. And then she tells herself she can't think that; doesn't get to look at this poor man objectively and make the silent decision that she finds him attractive.

Addison wonders what he sees when he looks at her.

"Have you slept?" And there's her answer, she figures. He sees someone who looks like ... _well, shit._

She decides on telling him the truth. There doesn't really seem to be any point in lying to him anymore. " _Not really._ Have you?"

" _Not really_."

Milo shrieks again and Addison sighs. "I - I should go get him dressed."

"Yeah." he waves his hand, indicating she should get back to it. "I'll get sorted."

She glances back at the bags again and finally makes the connection. "You're staying?"

Derek visibly swallows and she wonders whether he might still be nervous around her. She wonders whether she should tell him that she didn't bring the gun with her. He's probably scared of her, still. "For a few days. I thought I'd get away from ... well, everything, I guess."

"Oh, do you want us to leave? We could leave and give you your space -"

"No," he's quick to answer, interrupting her mumbling, "No. no. Please don't leave," and the response makes the side of her mouth quirk up just a little. "Of course not, Addison - don't. Please."

"Okay."

He nods and she turns to head back to the bathroom. "I, uh, I brought some scotch," he tells her almost shyly. "If you'd fancy some?"

He looks so earnest in telling her. "That'd be good," she replies, "I'll just get Milo ready for bed."

-:-

When she returns to the living room, Derek's already stoked the fire, the flames devouring a huge log that hadn't been in the basket before she'd arrived. He's removed his jacket too, having it hung up on the peg beside the door where her own hangs beside Milo's snowsuit. There's such a gentleness about him, Addison finds, despite his strength and the way he looks. A softness she knows she herself doesn't possess.

Milo's seated at her hip, sleepy-eyed from his bath but clearly fighting tiredness. Unsure of what to do, she takes a seat on the couch in front of the fire, settling her baby against her chest. Derek brings her the glass of scotch, holding it out for her to take before making his way to take up a spot on the floor in front of the couch despite the leg brace.

"Here," Addison says, shifting over so he can join her. "You're - you must be sore."

The cushions dip as his weight sinks into them and she's so overwhelmed by him all over again. She wishes she'd showered today; wishes she had done something _(or anything)_ with her hair rather than the simple ponytail it's starting to fall out of. With her fingers burning to touch Derek's, she takes a sip of the amber liquid so her throat will burn instead. It's an easier feeling to focus on.

Milo continues to blink up at her and she rocks slowly, careful not to jolt Derek with his cracked ribs and fractured leg; careful too, not to allow herself to get too close. They're not in that basement anymore and as much as she never really had an idea of where they stood back then, she has even less of one now.

"It's amazing," Derek says softly, gesturing at Milo, "How he looks at you. Like you're the centre of his world ... You're his entire world."

Addison looks up at him, fighting the lump in her throat and the burn that's returned to her fingers. "I guess I'm the only one he really sees."

He opens his mouth to say something else but seems to think better of it and closes his lips again around the glass in his hand. His sips are significantly bigger than hers and she wonders whether it's because he enjoys the taste or whether he's just trying to numb himself.

"The police found him," Derek says after a few minutes. Addison stops rocking Milo and almost throws up what little she's eaten today. "My sister's fiancé is a police officer. He's keeping an eye out on the reports coming in."

It takes her a while to be able to ask her question. "What did they say?" and it's a whisper as she tries to hold back the tears that's stinging in her eyes.

"O.D. Assumed that his girlfriend had left with the baby and ... _yeah_."

She nods. Just as he had said it would look like. Like planned.

" _That's it?_ "

" _That's it._ "

"W-what about...what happens to his..." She can't bring herself to finish with the word; _'body'._

He only blinks at her, "Maybe we shouldn't talk about this now," Derek says gently through thinned lips.

Addison all but downs the contents of her glass, wincing hard as the liquid hits the back of her throat and burns all the way down to her stomach. "I can handle it." she says weakly.

His eyes seem to soften even further and she just wants him to stop being so good to her. "Addison…"

"No. Please, Derek," she whispers, lips already trembling. "I want to know."

He sighs and she knows he's caving.

" _Please_."

"When someone dies and there's no available next of kin, their body is stored in the morgue until someone comes forward to...uh... _claim it_ , so-to-speak. If that doesn't happen, they might seek out someone from the family if they _can_."

"And if they _can't_?"

"The body's buried."

She chokes out the next question. "With a funeral?"

His eyes tell her the word his lips don't speak, and she nods knowingly. "Will they try to find me?"

"Probably."

She turns her head away so Derek can't see the tears in her eyes. It's futile anyway; she knows he already knows they're there. "I hate what he did to you," she whispers, sniffing, "I hated so many things - that he did and...didn't do. But I still _loved_ him somewhere amongst all that."

" _I know_."

"And he's still Milo's dad."

And she doesn't understand why she feels the need to justify, to explain to him why she _loves_ \- _loved_ Damon.

" _I know_."

"I hate myself more," she tells him, "More than I hate what he did. And don't try and tell me I shouldn't." she adds quickly before he can tell to stop blaming herself.

He doesn't stop het.

He just closes his lips, and leans towards her a little, his hand almost hesitantly reaching out to rest on her knee. He feels warm - too warm maybe, like he's searing her skin beneath the fabric of her jeans - but she doesn't want him to move.

"I _hate_ _him_ ," he tells her honestly. And she hears the rage in his voice. "But I don't _hate you_."

"You should," she can't bring herself to look at him. "I want you to."

He moves closer and Addison can feel the heat of his breath on her skin. It smells like alcohol too, but in a good way - an almost sweet, malty scent that makes her mouth water - and she wonders if her own breath is coming out as hot as it feels.

"But I don't want to hate you, Addison." He says it in a deep whisper that makes her shudder and flame and erupt with goosebumps all at once. She can't really see him through the tears in her eyes, but she can make out the blue of his irises and the soft pillows of his lips and the bobbing of his Adam's apple. " _Just_ …"

He grazes those pillows against her own lips, resting for a moment and then sealing his mouth over hers and suddenly she's falling off the edge of that cliff she was balancing on, nothing to hold on to, nothing to bring her back up to the surface and she feels like she's drowning in him. His touch is feather-light - so incredibly gentle - and his hand is holding her face in that crease where her ear and her neck meets. She thinks, somewhere in the midst of it all, that she's always wanted to be kissed like this.

Too soon, Derek pulls away and she feels cold, like she needs his skin back on hers to get warm again despite the roaring fire within. She opens her eyes and his lips are moist with her tears, her own cheeks and lips wet too. If nobody ever kisses her like that again, she thinks, at least she got the chance to see and feel what it was like.

"I've wanted to do that since I got here," he says roughly, eyes darting around her face so he can read whatever expression it is she's wearing. She can't be sure what it is. She thinks she probably can't be sure what day it is either.

Words, it seems, are tricky to come by. Her mouth opens and closes but no sounds comes out other than a series of shallow gasps. She looks down to find Milo finally asleep and rises from the couch so quickly that everything in the room spins and dips away from her momentarily.

"I…" He's looking at her like she's a wild animal. She feels like one. "I need to put Milo to bed."

She stays in that bedroom for the rest of the night, wide awake but exhausted. Maybe she hears footsteps grow closer at some point before they still and then disappear in the opposite direction again. Maybe she doesn't.

She doesn't open the door to check.

-:-

Addison doesn't expect to find Derek in the kitchen at six in the morning. He looks like he hasn't gotten much sleep either, body slouched against the counter as he waits for the kettle to fill with water.

"Want some tea?" he asks gruffly, only turning towards her once the kettle's full. "Little man still asleep?"

"Yeah," she replies. "And tea would be great, thank you." If nothing else, it'll give her something to do with her hands until Milo wakes up. She's surprised at how rough her own voice is, but figures that it comes with the territory of so many hours without sleep and a dry mouth with stale scotch. "I'll uh…" she indicates the bathroom down the hall. "Just wash up."

"You want a shower?" Derek asks. "This kettle takes ages to boil. But you probably knew that."

"Yeah," she forces something she hopes sounds like a burst of a laugh, or at least something that appears smile-like onto her lips. "But Milo will probably wake up soon."

He shrugs. "I can watch him for a few minutes."

He says it like it's no big deal, like this whole set-up is no fucking problem and Addison wonders whether Derek expects her to trust him with her son when she's done the unthinkable. He must see the hesitance in her eyes because he steps a little closer, voice dipping in carefully measured cadences.

"I'm not going to hurt either of you," he tells her. "I promise. I'm not that guy."

"I don't know how you can promise that," she says softly. "When I did what I did."

"Because I don't want to hurt either of you. It's the truth."

"I never wanted to hurt you, too," she whispers. "But I did."

It's silent for a moment, save for the lapping of the flames on the stove. She wonders where they'd be right now if she'd driven straight to the police station or - in contrast - the woods that night. More often than not, she wishes she'd done one or the other. The present reality is too fucked up; too much of _something_ and yet nowhere near enough of it at the same time.

"I _missed_ you, you know," Derek says after a while, "That's why I came here. I wanted to see you. I didn't go home for Christmas because...I actually missed you."

She gets it. She missed him too.

"I really didn't want to..." he shakes his head, rubbing the back of his neck, "And I didn't want to feel...like... _this_ about you." He looks consumed and it makes her feel guilty all over again.

Her words are choked when she finally manages to speak. "Then don't. Switch it off."

His eyes clouds with confusion. "Is that what you want?"

No. "Yes."

He steps closer and lowers his voice to nothing more than a hoarse whisper. "Really?"

Addison's breath catches in her throat and her feet feels unsteady. His arms are close, slowly raising upwards so his hands catch around her wrists, just holding them at first before his thumbs begin rubbing soft circles on the underside. She feels slack and heavy and her pulse is thrumming against her temple. "No."

Right when she thinks he's going to kiss her, he drops his forehead to hers, just resting it there with closed eyes and weighty breaths that hit the bridge of her nose before fanning out across her cheeks like a spreading wildfire. She's starting to wonder whether he'll make her go up in flames before Christmas Day arrives. Maybe it'd be the best way to go, she considers. And then a whimper filters through the heat and the fog and Addison exhales her own breath against him.

"Milo's awake."

Derek pulls back and she looks at her wrists like she expects there to be a big, ugly burn mark staring back at her.

There isn't.

She leaves the room and plucks her son from the centre of the bed he's been sleeping on, passing the bathroom on her way back and maybe it's the sight of the showerhead or the aching in her bones or maybe it's Derek's scent clinging to her, but she hands him Milo wordlessly, tries to turn her lips into what she hopes is a grateful smile, and then heads back out again.

-:-

It's quiet when she returns, fresh from her shower, from the bathroom wearing the only other outfit she brought out here with her.

A flare of panic seizes her chest and spreads throughout her when she spots the slightly-open sliding doors, but then, she sees her baby boy in his snowsuit seated in Derek's arms.

It's early - dawn's only just starting to break beyond the trees - and it's cold too, but there's a magical calm that only fresh, undisturbed snowfall can bring. She slides the door open enough so that she can join them in the yard, her feet sinking into the soft white flakes, and everything seems such a million miles away from the city that it could've all just been a terrible nightmare. But then Derek turns to her, face still coloured with the faded bruises and her heart sinks all over again.

"He seemed to like the snow," Derek says by way of explanation. "Thought we'd just come out for a couple of minutes."

Addison strokes her fingers down Milo's cheek with a small smile. "He does."

"What about you? Do you like the snow?"

"I'm always cold," she replies.

"Right."

"But it's beautiful," she decides aloud. "When it's like this. Unspoilt."

"I like the peace," Derek says, turning his gaze from her to Milo. "What do you say little man? We should get you inside before your mom freezes."

He's overwhelming. She follows him inside without a word.

-:-

Later, after tea slurped in an uncomfortable silence punctuated only by Milo's gurgles, Derek suggests they head into town to get some groceries. Or, more accurately, he suggests Addison head there while he rests his leg, but she apologises for having no money _"hence the soup rations,"_ she tried to joke _(except, of course, it falls flat when he blinks at her, confused)._

"Jesus Addison," he mutters. "You must've barely eaten."

"It's fine."

Addison gives him a small smile that doesn't meet her eyes. She _can_ manage. Learned to. She have been for years. Though it was a little bit difficult to adjust to at the beginning - the first year when her parents kicked her out of the house - from a professional chefs and gourmet restaurants to cardboard boxes and canned foods, and from all the money she could spend to rationing and budgeting and pretending like she knew what she was doing.

"Well, it's Christmas," he seems to decide aloud after a moment, "It'd be criminal not to buy enough groceries to feed a small army. I'll just have to come and make sure you do it right."

He's coming because she's unwilling to spend anymore of his money; rely on him for anymore help and they both know it. For some reason, she finds herself seated in the driver's seat and navigating the icy road into the centre of town anyway.

He pushes the cart around each aisle of the little grocery store and Addison has no clue what it is they're supposed to put in it. Derek however, appears to know his way around the shelves and adds all the accompaniments for what she thinks could pass for a royal feast. Milo's asleep in her arms, his head resting against her chest by the time they reach the cashier who beams at Derek, then wrinkles her nose at the leg brace.

He makes up a story about getting injured while playing basketball and Addison spends the entire time overwhelmed by guilt and biting back tears. He then reminds the cashier about the items they'd let her take the previous day, and close to forty dollars is added to the total. Without blinking, Derek hands his credit card over, signs the receipt and they head back to the parking lot.

Addison spends the journey home wondering just how the hell she's ever going to find the words to thank him and repay him back for his kindness.

In short, she doesn't.

And so, after she lays Milo to sleep in the centre of the big bed she's barely slept in herself, she gathers what little energy she has left and heads out to where Derek's drinking a mug of the newly-purchased coffee. She avoids looking in the mirror as she passes, knowing that what she sees isn't going to be good; knowing too, that it might just sow the final seed of doubt to prevent her from going through with the only thank you she can give right now. And Derek deserves something, even if it is as fucked up as this.

He watches her enter the room as he always does. She's not sure if it's because he was used to doing it in the basement or if it's because he's genuinely curious about her, but she keeps her eyes cast down at the floor until she reaches where he's sitting on the couch, takes the mug between her hands and sets it down on the hearth. He looks at her questioningly but doesn't speak - not at first, anyway - as she reaches her fingers out to his chest.

She manages a couple buttons of his shirt despite the shaking, but then Derek finally seems to remember his words and asks, "What are you doing?"

Addison doesn't speak, just undoes another button and then another and then the final one before she stands back and removes her sweater and t-shirt together. The bra she's wearing is old - one she already had before Milo - and it no longer fits properly. He's probably used to girls who wears matching lace sets from La Perla, she figures, rather than unflattering navy cotton from J.C. Penney, but it's all she's got so dwelling on it seems pointless.

She daren't look directly at Derek and so instead, she eyes the belt buckle at the waist of his jeans, leaning towards him so she can unfasten it. She's pulling the leather through the metal when he stills her hands with his own.

"Addison, _stop_."

She doesn't.

What she does instead, is pull her hands out from under his, brushing his groin as she does so, before unzipping her own jeans. It's not really necessary - she can get them over her hips and down her legs without needing to loosen them first - but the aesthetics aren't quite the same without the sound of the zipper. They're in a pool around her ankles when Derek sits up, taking her hands far too gently in his so he can tug on them.

"Addison." He whispers it this time, something about the timbre of it making her shiver, and when she looks up, she immediately wishes she hadn't. "Please stop."

It has no right to, but the rejection stings.

Her face flames and burns and she's still standing there, stock still, with her jeans on the floor and her sweater tossed to the side too, all of her pale, ugly skin on display for him to recoil over - and she almost vomits at the thought of it.

"Hey," he's whispering, tugging at her hands again but she's not going to look at him. She won't look at him. She will not look at him and the corners of her mouth trembles upside down. " _Hey_."

Derek dips his head to catch her gaze so she screws her eyes shut, still bound to the floor somehow. And then she feels the gentlest of flutters on the underside of her left wrist, and then her right, like the brush of a feather against her skin. His lips, she already knows.

"Please open your eyes."

She does, but only a fraction. She doesn't allow them to meet his. "What do you want from me?" she whispers, face still red with shame.

She just needs and wants somehow to _thank him_ and this is what she knows works best, always.

"I don't know." She thinks this might be the most honest he's been. "But I want to try something if you'll ... will you lie down with me?"

There's a blanket draped over the back of the couch and he must see her eyes flit to it because he releases her wrists tentatively, like she might run _(she doesn't think she could even if she wanted to)_ so he can pull it around her. He's so tender in the way he closes the material, using the gathered ends to help guide her towards him. And she goes - like a sheep following its shepherd _(or a lamb to the slaughter)_ folding herself against him.

There's no noise but the spitting of the fire and Derek's even breaths against her hair. She has no idea how long they lie there, nor at what point his fingers interweave with hers so their joined hands are cradled between them. Eventually though, he clears his throat and his voice seems raw.

"I lost my dad when I was thirteen."

She lifts her head and catches sight of the cloudiness in his eyes.

"I was there ... when he was _murdered_ ," he starts and she takes in a sharp breath, "I'm so sorry, Derek." she whispers in shame when he tells her his father was shot _(with a gun)_ during a robbery at their store, as if a too loud noise could shatter the fragile silence around them and she remembers his reaction and his huge eyes whenever she had that stupid gun pointed at him.

She closes her eyes and she can smell the salt of the tears they shed and she feels guilty because now she sees a much younger version of himself - a boy crouching behind the counter with his sister and she listens to him and wishes she could do anything to make it hurt less for him, but yet here she is being comforted by him. His voice breaks at one point and she finds herself squeezing his hand, just a little.

She thinks she feels him squeeze back.

There have been some pretty crappy Christmas Eves over her past twenty three years. This, she concludes, is easily both the best and the worst of them all.

/

 _ **Thanks so much for reading everyone. Hope you enjoyed. I am slowly but surely trying my best to put up more updates for my other stories.**_

 _ **Please leave a review! REVIEW!**_


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